Ukraine: Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank and commend the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for instituting this important debate and for introducing it so profoundly.

Regrettably, we are all familiar with Putin’s and his spokesperson’s habit of using diplomatic relations like a cracked mirror, ascribing his own egregious intentions to others and therefore justifying aggression and escalations. From the start of this phase of the Ukraine conflict, it has had a nuclear component. In his declaration announcing the February invasion, Putin made statements warning the NATO powers of likely nuclear consequences should they choose to intervene. This nuclear blackmail appears to have, in limited terms, succeeded. NATO rejected Ukraine’s pleas to institute a no-fly zone, despite the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Parliaments all voting in favour. It should not be possible for a tyrant to use nuclear weapons as a shield to conquer his neighbours like this; that it is points to one of several deep injustices and risks baked into the systems that we have created.

There is no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. The use of any nuclear weapon would be strategic; all are appallingly destructive and present an existential risk. They are not merely political instruments or one of the sinews of diplomacy. The risk of nuclear weapons being used on a European battlefield is greater today than at any time since the height of the Cold War, and this risk is not just subject to the caprice of an increasingly unstable political actor who is acting against the backdrop of a decaying regime. It is also subject to error or miscalculation. In October 1962 off the coast of Cuba, a Soviet submarine commander, on hearing depth charges, wrongly inferred that war had broken out and gave orders to fire a nuclear weapon at US targets. He was prevented from so doing only by the last-minute intervention of the senior intelligence officer on board the boat. I and almost everyone I know owe our lives to this officer.

We know that the reliability and safety of all nuclear weapons are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusion and increasingly to disruptive technologies. This war in Ukraine has already exposed the degraded nature of Russian arms and military infrastructure, a situation that only builds upon the fallibility inherent in human nature. The use of nuclear weapons is now contingent not just on the temperament of those responsible for them but on autonomous systems and evolving weapons technology. Nuclear weapons could be detonated by accident or interference and, given that the bonds of trust between Russia and the West are fraying more every day, how could we realistically impute a lack of malign intention, even were that the case?

In response to this evolving risk, the US Congress and President have separately initiated a comprehensive fail-safe evaluation of their nuclear weapons. What assessment have our Government made of the implications of this action by our most important ally, particularly on our confidence in the fail-safe resilience of our systems and on whether we will take their lead and conduct our own similar review?

We face a moment of enormous danger. What mechanisms do we have in place to bring this conflict to an end on terms that are acceptable to Ukraine? In modern warfare, there is no such thing as a conflict that can be won by purely military means. The best that combat can offer is to fashion a context within which an acceptable settlement can be reached. But, ultimately, there will have to be a set of terms to which both Ukraine and Russia will be prepared to accede if this war is to end. It is not for this Government, or any other western Administration, to attempt to dictate the timing of such negotiations; that is a matter for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. But, as the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said only two weeks ago, we are reaching a time when the Russians would be negotiating from an adverse position, certainly in military terms and possibly in political terms as well.

This conflict has exposed the failures of a generation to grasp the opportunities after the Cold War to escape the global risk arising from our collective attachment to nuclear deterrence. This is not the time to look backwards; we now need to make a resolution to double down and realise the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, repeatedly expressed by representatives of the British Government and the non-proliferation treaty. When I sat on the Trident Commission alongside several colleagues from this House a decade ago, we concluded that the UK needed to do more to drive genuine multilateral disarmament. Unfortunately, what effort we have put in has not borne fruit, and the strategic situation has deteriorated further. The latest NPT review conference this August ended in failure.

We cannot simply step back and shrug our shoulders. As a nuclear weapon state and permanent member of the Security Council, we bear a special responsibility. While we rightly condemn the leadership in Moscow, we must also draw it or its successors into a constructive process that builds an inclusive European security arrangement, with strong and credible security guarantees for Ukraine. This is a fearsome challenge, perhaps more problematic than winning a war with Russia, but we owe it to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to engage in it.

Ukraine: Post-conflict Reconstruction

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, both Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us that for the rebuilding of a country we need strategic patience, and the international community does not have enough of that. We also need transparency and accountability, or else we will fail. Ukraine, for all that it deserves, is one of the most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International. It is fundamental to the investment of reconstruction money into this country that we set up accountability and transparency regarding where the international money is going. I hope that we take a role, because of our experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan, to ensure that it is right.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. One of the real challenges we have in any conflict is ensuring that money reaches those who require it. It is a continued commitment. The noble Lord referred to Afghanistan and Iraq. I know first-hand of the continued challenges, with people looking to intervene and interject, particularly with financial support throughout the country. These are the very points that we are focused on in respect of Ukraine. We need a continued strategic approach from a UK government perspective, but equally, whether it is the United States, the EU, ourselves or other key allies, we need to be totally aligned and working to a single objective.

Tigray Province: Ceasefire Agreement

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the 2 November ceasefire agreement between the government of Ethiopia and Tigrayan forces, (2) how ceasefire terms will be monitored and verified, and (3) how likely it is that foreign forces will now leave the Tigray Province in Ethiopia.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, yesterday I met Rita Kashay, a 25 year-old UK citizen of Irob heritage who has been working for the past three months in Tigrayan refugee camps in Sudan, taking and preserving testimony from women affected by conflict-related sexual violence. The Irob people are an ethnic minority group who live in a predominantly highland-mountainous area of the same name in north-eastern Tigray. The testimonies that Rita has taken record the existential threats and catastrophic humanitarian suffering that her people have endured at the hands of Eritrean and Ethiopian forces: the massacres, kidnappings, rapes, lootings and abductions committed against her people since the beginning of the war in Tigray in November 2020. While celebrating Christmas in January 2021, 10 members of her own family were massacred. Two years ago, in the absence of a systemic mechanism to collect and preserve this evidence for a day of reckoning, she gave up her studies to do so. For a while, she has been the only person working on this. Due to the unrest in Sudan, other investigators left.

Rita spoke at the recent AU-EU meeting in the Gambia on human rights in Africa. As a result, she was openly bullied by the Eritrean and Ethiopian delegates. Despite the dangers to her own security and the bullying, this brave young woman continues in her defence of the human rights of her people. In the meantime, she has achieved her master’s degree in chemical engineering. She is a hero and an excellent role model. I note her work and say her name in your Lordships’ House to remind us that, although much of today’s today will centre on the cessation of hostilities agreement reached in South Africa on 2 November between the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, and the prospects of its implementation, we must not forget what has happened since November 2020.

The last two years have seen an embarrassing and tragic failure of the international community in its response to the war in Tigray. I say this not to absolve the parties to the conflict of their responsibilities for initiating and prosecuting the war in Tigray: they are responsible and should be held accountable. However, we must look in the mirror and ask how the international community—including countries with influence such as our own, and international organisations such as the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations—could allow such a war to continue without effective steps to end it.

We have heard the mantra “African solutions for African problems” many times over the past two years. These solutions should not have allowed the unfettered prosecution of a suicidal war, while the international community meekly sheathed the tools that it may have to stop the fighting and protect civilians. The losses on all sides of this conflict are staggering—perhaps up to a million if we count combatant and civilian casualties, making this the most deadly and destructive war this century. War crimes on a vast scale have been committed, and ethnic cleansing and genocide inflicted on Tigray by the Ethiopian Government, its allies and Eritrea. All this is confirmed by the only reasonable interpretation of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia in its report presented at the UN in September.

That said, we now have an agreement to “silence the guns”, which has been supplemented by the commanders’ agreement of 12 November, signed in Kenya. It is apparent that these agreements will be extremely challenging to implement, and the risks of a renewed conflict are real. Today, we must all ask what we, our Government and other countries and organisations can do to strengthen the framework for peace and accountability, or we will be judged as having utterly failed millions of Tigrayans and the people of Ethiopia.

Accordingly, I ask the Minister what assessment His Majesty’s Government have made of, first, the cessation of hostilities ceasefire agreement between the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigrayan forces, agreed on 2 November, and its supplements. Do the Government share the US State Department’s view of 12 November that

“Work remains, but progress is promising and gives the Ethiopian people reason for hope”,


or is there a more cautious read in the FCDO and No. 10, based on the numerous credible reports of breaches of the terms of the peace deal and the fact that the conflict in Tigray continues, and that no humanitarian aid has yet been delivered? I wrote those words last night, but I saw on Twitter this afternoon from ICRC Ethiopia that two Red Cross trucks had made their way to Mekelle with medical aid in them.

Secondly, how will the ceasefire terms be monitored and verified? This is the issue that worries me most, considering that the stated mechanism for verification includes only 10 individuals without any ability to monitor the situation on the ground in Tigray. Given the scale of this war, is it beyond the international community’s resources to gather and deploy a robust capability to police, monitor and verify observance and breaches of the terms of this peace accord?

Thirdly, what is the likelihood that foreign forces will now leave Tigray province, even though these forces—let us name them: the Eritrean army, which has been responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the war, and the Amhara militia—are not even mentioned explicitly in any of these agreements? We have repeatedly called for Eritrean troops permanently to leave Tigray, but they remain. If Eritrea fails to honour the agreements in this respect, what will be the consequences? US voice are calling for sanctioning President Afwerki and introducing UN Security Council resolutions condemning Eritrea. What do we plan to do in such circumstances?

Considering these assessments, to enhance prospects for implementation of a cessation of hostilities and to ensure that humanitarian aid flows now, that perpetrators of war crimes are held accountable and that reconstruction of Tigray is made possible, I encourage the following steps, which are based on the premise of keeping the leverage we now have and increasing it where possible. Principal among them is withholding economic, military or other assistance to the Government of Ethiopia until implementation is secured.

While I was compiling my own list yesterday, my attention was drawn to Congressman Brad Sherman’s recounting on Twitter of a conversation he had with Jake Sullivan, in which he urged the suspension of the US African Growth and Opportunity Act and the maintenance of opposition to international lending institution loans and the provision of humanitarian aid to Ethiopian until

“commitments are kept to allow unrestricted food and medicine (and the fuel necessary to transport them) into Tigray … there is a full and lasting end to fighting … the Internet is restored so that the world can hear from the people of Tigray … international human rights monitors and journalists are on the ground within Tigray and at all sites across Ethiopia where Tigrayan civilians have been detained en masse”,

and the release of Tigrayans imprisoned solely for their ethnicity. I adopt Congressman Sherman’s approach and add that we must continue to support the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia and subsequent international efforts to investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Finally, I ask the Government to conduct a thorough review, and to report to Parliament, on what other steps can be encouraged, facilitated or supported to strengthen all aspects of the agreement and encourage its successful implementation. For example, the Minister will be aware that the Halo Trust registered in Ethiopia last year following a request from the Ethiopian Government for assistance in meeting their Ottawa mine ban treaty obligations. Halo is now clearing minefields on the Ethiopian side of the Somaliland-Ethiopia border, employing 90 Ethiopian staff, supported by Germany, Norway and the Netherlands. Funding permitting, it tells me that the programme could ideally field 1,000 staff.

Ethiopia requires a countrywide survey of mine contamination to determine the full extent of its estimated 150 minefields. The peace deal should pave the way for deployment of explosive ordnance disposal teams across the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions. The United Nations Mine Action Service announced last week that it had secured $2 million of funding from the Government of Japan to deploy a limited EOD capacity in Tigray and has asked Halo for assistance. Linking EOD and mine-clearance support to the wider food security and environmental stabilisation efforts is critical to the reconstruction of Ethiopia. The Halo Trust, with 20 years’ experience in the Horn of Africa, is well placed to assist.

More widely, in the Halo Trust the UK has a robust and deployable capability that already in Ethiopia, as in 30 countries across the globe, does hazardous things in hazardous places with competence. In the context of its developing resilience strategy, and bearing in mind my comments about the absence of deployable capability to monitor or verify implementation of the peace agreement, have the Government thought about how this experienced and trusted NGO could form the basis of a capability needed in times such as these when a conflict moves into the resolution phase?

Genocide Determination Bill [HL]

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support this Bill and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, was reminded in the Library briefing that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has in this place spoken and raised questions about our approach to genocide upwards of 300 times. This is not only a testament to his extraordinary leadership and perseverance but, sadly, an indication that our Government are yet to respond adequately to the concerns that he has raised or the cross-party consensus that the UK’s genocide policy needs reform. I remind your Lordships that in 2017, the lack of a formal mechanism, whether grounded in law or policy, was criticised by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Having acceded to the genocide convention, the UK has a duty to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. This is not an exhaustive list, but since our accession, genocide has been committed in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Libya, Myanmar, Syria and Iraq, and presently is being committed in Ethiopia and China. Evidence of Russia’s ongoing atrocities in Ukraine, too many to list, include the abduction and forced adoption of Ukrainian children. That is revealed in recently published legal analysis that suggests a serious risk of genocide. It is true that, in accordance with the convention, the UK introduced laws criminalising genocide, no matter where it is committed, and has this long-standing policy of leaving the question of genocide determination to the international judicial systems. Unfortunately, this effectively means a de facto absence of any formal mechanism that allows for the consideration and recognition of mass atrocities which meet the threshold of genocide.

It is a simple fact, and our experience, that impunity begets further crimes and that lack of action only empowers those seeking to commit them. Determination and recognition of mass atrocities for what they are is not only a matter of good practice. It derives from the state’s international law duties and is compelled by the duties to prevent and punish genocide. A preliminary determination of genocide or the serious risk of it is crucial to engage the duty to prevent genocide, in Article 1 of the convention. The ICJ judgment on Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Serbia and Montenegro in 2007 confirmed that under the duty to prevent, states must act

“the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.”

Although there are international options, the UK Government do not have a strong history of engaging with these judicial systems. While recently the UK Government have led in some initiatives, such as on UN Security Council Resolution 2379, establishing an investigative mechanism into the Daesh atrocities in Iraq, all of these have fallen short of engaging the question of genocide itself.

The UK is, I regret, in good faith not meeting the requirements it signed up to under the convention and must do more. It must ensure it has all relevant mechanisms to implement its duty to prevent, including by ensuring it can make preliminary determinations of genocide and the serious risk of it, consistent with the ICJ determination. Genocide determination is the first step towards an effective and comprehensive response, including to prevent the risk of genocide from materialising. To prevent further atrocities, states should have effective monitoring and determination mechanisms in place. Domestically, as we have heard, there is no mechanism to enable UK courts to deal with this question. Not having such a mechanism or procedure means that the UK risks a de facto breach of its international law obligations under the convention.

This Bill creates a framework by which the UK can meet its ongoing commitments to prevent genocide by the introduction of two mechanisms for preliminary definition of genocide or a serious risk of it. They were explained comprehensively by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I do not intend to refer to them. I expect that the Government will argue that the procedure stipulated by the Bill does not currently exist in law. This is certainly true but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, pointed out, mechanisms such as those set out in the Bill will allow for a process for genocide hearings to follow due process in full accordance with the law.

I have relied heavily on the briefing from the Coalition for Genocide Response for my contribution today. It believes that other states will replicate this model once it passes into law. It is also convinced that, while the Genocide Determination Bill tabled cannot solve all the problems with the UK’s response to genocide, it implements the UK’s own long-standing policy that it is for the courts to deal with genocide determination. It implements recommendation seven of the Bishop of Truro’s review and rectifies the unenforceability of Section 3 of the Trade Act 2021. It addresses the international judicial systems not being engaged on the issue and the lack of political will. It bridges the gap between the duties under the genocide convention and their realisation. It implements the UK’s duty to prevent, by ensuring that the situation is assessed by a competent body, and the UK Government can then act in an informed way. For all these reasons, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the Bill.

Russia: Tactical Nuclear Weapon Deployment

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has been a proud contributor to Ukraine’s heroic efforts. We have given £2.3 billion so far in military support to Ukraine, and we are committed to meeting or exceeding that amount next year. We have provided support in other forms as well, amounting to around £1.6 billion and, as the Prime Minister reiterated today, our support is absolutely unwavering. However, I think it is also clear that were Vladimir Putin to engage in the kind of abomination we are talking about today, the repercussions for him would be very serious indeed.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as a vice-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the chair of the European Leadership Network. In September, Jake Sullivan told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the US was communicating

“directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, reminded us, this morning on the “Today” programme, Sir Jeremy Fleming, the director of GCHQ, cautioned that any talk of nuclear weapons was very dangerous and that we need to be very careful about how we talk about that. So is it not best that we take Sir Jeremy’s implied advice and do not keep talking up the potential use of nuclear weapons in this context?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, there is no one in the House and, indeed, the country who would welcome the threats that we have heard from Russia being realised, but it is important that we reiterate, as NATO and the UK have, that any employment of nuclear weapons would fundamentally alter the very nature of this already grim conflict. It is important that the world is clear that were the fundamental security of any NATO member to be threatened, NATO has the capabilities and the resolve to impose costs on an adversary, whoever that is, that would far outweigh the benefits that any adversary could hope to achieve. I do not believe that that is talking up the prospect of nuclear conflict, which is the very last thing that any of us wants, but it is important nevertheless that the consequences are understood across the board.

Ethiopia: Humanitarian and Security Situation

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the humanitarian and security situation in northern Ethiopia.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is gravely concerned about the resumption of fighting between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian Government. There is no military solution to this conflict; only political negotiations can resolve it. Thirteen million people in northern Ethiopia are in need now of humanitarian assistance as a result of the conflict and the UK is urging all parties to immediately reinstate the truce, allow humanitarian access and begin peace talks.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, this conflict is responsible for the deaths of half a million or more people already from either war or famine. On 2 August, following a meeting in Addis Ababa and a visit to the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, the US special envoy, Mike Hammer, and envoys of the EU, the UN and the UK called for the restoration of basic, essential services and unfettered humanitarian access, implying that Abiy, who had met them, had agreed to do these things. However, he summarily dismissed their call and maintained the blockade, continuing to use starvation as a weapon of war. Fighting has now resumed, with Eritrea’s re-entry into the conflict, a counteroffensive by the TPLF and lethal air strikes by Abiy aimed at civilian areas, including a kindergarten. Considering the humanitarian, regional and geopolitical implications of increasing instability in Ethiopia, what steps are we taking to end this conflict? What leverage do we have?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, 22 months of fighting has shown that the only solution is a political one and we have been very forthright in urging all parties to reinstate the previously agreed cessation of hostilities, begin peace talks and guarantee humanitarian access to northern Ethiopia for basic services. We have supported and continue to support the African Union’s mediation efforts. The African Union is pushing hard for a redoubling of those efforts to avert further escalation. Our view and its view is that Tigrayan forces should leave Amhara and Eritrean forces should withdraw from Ethiopia. We are as dismayed as the noble Lord no doubt is at the recent reports of civilian casualties following a government air strike on Tigray. This is a humanitarian crisis that is growing terrifyingly quickly, affecting vast numbers of people.

Sri Lanka

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, we are certainly watching that space very closely. Communal tensions arise in any conflict where communities perhaps seek to assign blame to another community. We are also looking very carefully at pre-existing religious tensions. Although there have been raids into the presidential compound and the Prime Minister’s residence, we have not yet seen or monitored an increase in communal tension between the two major communities in Sri Lanka.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, Sri Lanka has a dark history of human rights abuses, the vast majority being perpetrated with complete impunity. Today’s fear, with the announcement of a state of emergency coupled with political instability, is that these terrible atrocities will begin again. What conversations has the Minister or any of his colleagues had with our partners about how we can avoid these fears being realised? On the issue of impunity, it appears that the Rajapaksa brothers are intent on going to the United States of America. Can we have some conversations with our American ally about whether the impunity they have enjoyed up until now will survive that transfer to the USA?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord talks about impunity regarding conflicts past, particularly the civil war. That is why the United Kingdom has led on Resolution 46/1 at the Human Rights Council. When I was last in Geneva, I engaged directly with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, saying that we would sustain our support for it. That remains an important issue, and I am sure it will be a point of discussion when the UNHRC returns in September.

As to the current situation with the previous Administration, including Mr Rajapaksa and other members of his family, countries will make their own determinations but we want the perpetrators of the civil war to be held to account. Equally, we want to ensure that the communities that suffered do not see the conflicts of the past occur again.

Tigray

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, again, without getting too much into the arms sales issue, as I have said repeatedly from the Dispatch Box, we have a very rigid policy when it comes to arms and defence sales across the world; those same principles are applied irrespective of which country may be requesting that support or assistance from the UK.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, this conflict is a humanitarian disaster of monumental proportions; 9 million people have been affected by it and about half a million people have died. Turning to the peace process which has been proposed, the TPLF does not trust the African Union to lead the peace process and wants Kenya to lead it instead. Given that on Thursday last week Prime Minister Abiy’s spokesperson spoke very positively about the relationship between Ethiopia and Kenya and between Prime Minister Abiy and President Kenyatta, should we not argue for the Kenyan Government to work alongside the AU and its envoy as a compromise solution? Surely with what is at stake, that is what is necessary: a compromise.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very valid proposal and I assure him that in our engagement with Kenya the importance of the situation in Ethiopia is part and parcel of our discussions. I think there will be a change of leadership very shortly in Kenya, with President Kenyatta stepping down. But it is equally important that we engage proactively to ensure that whoever then goes on to lead Kenya is fully engaged in finding a solution to this process.

Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord says. Of course, he is right to articulate that we have been making representations, including directly with the Russian authorities. We do not recognise the de facto authorities in occupied parts of Ukraine, and I think that is the right approach. I assure him of our good offices in every element of ensuring the rights of all the detainees who are currently being detained by Russia and strengthening the hand of Ukraine in their representation.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, in the case of Aiden Aslin, on 18 April, Graham Phillips, a former British civil servant and pro-Russian propagandist, published a video interview with him—a prisoner of war, in handcuffs, physically injured and manifestly under duress—and extracted from him an admission, in those conditions, that he was not a Ukrainian soldier but had a different relationship with the war. Experts who have studied this video and its circumstances say there is sufficient evidence there to support the view that this was a breach of the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war, and that Phillips, a British citizen, is at risk of prosecution for war crimes. As he is a British citizen, ought we not to be further investigating this to see whether he has indeed violated international law, and issuing a warrant for his arrest?

British Council Contractors: Afghanistan

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, if I understand this correctly, these people are contractors for the British Council, and employees of GardaWorld are working as security contractors for the Government and the embassy. In Scotland, they are very well known to us; we know exactly who these people are and we know a lot about them. Presumably, given what they were doing, we must be very sanguine about their attitude towards security. Why were these people excluded from the ARAP scheme in the first place? Why does the British Council now tell us that it was allowed to put only employees through the ARAP scheme and not the contractors? Why is it only now that we recognise that we should fulfil our obligation not only to them but to their families, to the extent of 1,500 people? Why do we not just include them in the ARAP scheme and give them the flexibility that everyone else has, rather than putting these people—a lot of whom, as we know, are living in daily fear of their lives—through this short window of opportunity to get registered for resettlement and, we hope, to get back to security with us?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, as the noble Lord is aware, there are two different schemes: the ARAP scheme has its eligibility criteria and the ACRS—which is now open as this particular pathway—has its own criteria. I know of individual cases of people being considered for the ARAP scheme but not being accepted on to it. However, there have been opportunities, as we have seen in certain cases, allowing others then to go through the ACRS process.

On the small window of opportunity that the noble Lord asked about, there is a cap on the number we will be taking in year one which is both manageable and, I think, consistent with the announcements we have made previously. Equally, this is only year one; other pathways are also open to those seeking settlement, including Pathway 2, on which we are working very closely with the UNHCR. There are those people, including those from the cohorts we have discussed, who will be in neighbouring countries. We are working very closely with the UNHCR on that pathway as well. Therefore, ARAP, ACRS, Pathway 2 and, indeed, ACRS Pathway 3 are different routes, which enable people to go through a process which would allow for their resettlement in the United Kingdom.