Belarus
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Although she is asking a broader question, at the root of this, without a free press, freedom of speech and guarantors of that sort, it is very hard to imagine a flourishing and free civil society. To confirm what I hinted at earlier, we are, of course, supporting civil society and independent media in Belarus, and we have tripled our programme funding compared with pre-crisis levels, so it is now £4.5 million. We continue to look for opportunities to support civil society and, in particular, a free press in that country.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, do we not need to salute the courage of the leader of the opposition—the rightful democratic leader of Belarus—and all those thousands of people who, week after week, took to the streets last year? I am deeply disturbed about the BBC World Service, which is a wonderful example of soft power. Belarus needs to have free information, unfettered, yet the BBC World Service’s budget has not been guaranteed beyond April of this year.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, that is an important point, but I point out that in two Questions’ time, that will be the subject of a 10-minute question and answer session, where I hope to be able to provide some reassurance at least.
Sanctions
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very practical and helpful suggestion. We are collecting evidence to support whichever jurisdiction might follow through on the crimes being committed on the ground, including those that will be investigated by the ICC. We will be in full support of that with whatever evidence we have; we will submit our own intelligence that we gather on the ground. Equally, as he may well be aware, we are a strong supporter of the ICC. We will work co-operatively with whatever evidence we can provide to it.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend made several references to legislation. Does he accept that it would be right for such necessary legislation to be given priority over all other legislation? It is absolutely essential that we spend our time dealing not just with domestic Bills if there are Bills that can have a real influence on this ghastly situation.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the immediate issue of the sanctions, we have been working through the legislation, and I am grateful to the usual channels. Normally, there is a 28-day period for a debate to prevail after legislation has been laid; we are currently conducting the debates within 24 or 48 hours, so that partly reflects the situation. On the wider legislation we are bringing forward, I know the respective Front Benches and the usual channels are working very hard to accommodate the legislation required.
Ukraine: OSCE Special Monitoring Mission
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, all options are open to the Russians to engage in the kind of dialogue that might help prevent an escalation in the current situation. It is worth remembering that there are few—if any—countries in the world more highly skilled in the distribution of misinformation. In this Question, we are discussing Russian claims about the withdrawal. Their pitch is that withdrawal indicates knowledge of an alleged imminent Ukrainian offensive. This is clearly and self-evidently false. Our decision to withdraw was based on a threat posed by Russia—nothing else.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend really saying that the withdrawal took place because of a Russian threat to the safety of these people? Does this not smack of pusillanimity on the part of the Government?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
Yes, I am saying that the Government took their decision to safeguard the lives of the people in question. The noble Lord can draw his own conclusion. It is easy to make such statements from the comfort of these red Benches. Nevertheless, it is the Government’s job to ensure, as much as they can, the safety of those people on the front line doing extremely difficult work.
Middle East: Human Rights
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, if we were to apply—honestly and rigorously—the same criteria, there would be very few members of the Human Rights Council remaining.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Anelay asked a specific Question about whether these matters were raised in the meeting on 20 December. My noble friend the Minister gave a helpful but general answer and did not answer that specific question. Could he now do so?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I am very pleased that my answer was helpful. I apologise if it was too general, but I am afraid that is the depth of my knowledge on an issue that does not normally sit within my portfolio.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I really thought that I had confirmed the situation about Ms U. She has had an unreserved apology. We made a £7,500 compensation payment. We paid the benefit arrears of £19,832.55 and gave money for interest. I think that I have been very clear about that. On the issue of compensation to others, again, it is a discretionary scheme, but I re-emphasise that if anybody believes that they have a special case, they can make representation. I think that clears the way.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, should it not be axiomatic that where somebody suffers as a result of maladministration there is automatically compensation? This is not a criticism of my noble friend, who is the most kind-hearted of people, but we must have compensation if maladministration is the cause of suffering.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I have shared with the whole House the legal position on compensation when it is a LEAP scheme. The PHSO has let the department know what he thinks should happen. I have told noble Lords what the legal position is, and I know that the department needs to respond to the PHSO. When it does that, I am sure that the whole House will be made aware.
Uighurs in Xinjiang
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord will know my response. Obviously, the British Government’s position on genocide and the declaration of genocide has not changed, but I believe that the tribunal—he will know this from our own exchanges—has again provided what I would describe as the most harrowing evidence of what has happened and continues to happen in Xinjiang, and we are looking at that very carefully.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, what contact have the Government had with Sir Geoffrey and the tribunal? Have there been official meetings? If not, will my noble friend undertake to ensure that he meets Sir Geoffrey at an early date?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that we have met Sir Geoffrey Nice—indeed, I have met him on several occasions over various reports and work he does. Our officials followed the tribunal very closely and engaged directly with Sir Geoffrey Nice.
China: Genocide
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, we have just heard a very brave speech from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, admitting the failures of the past with which he was inadvertently associated. We owe a great deal today, not only to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for what he has just said, but particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has indeed been a leader in this particular case. I salute him for what he has done, persistently, not over months but over years and indeed decades, as somebody said. We are all in his debt. We are also in debt, in a lesser way, to our Library for producing such a useful paper as a background to today’s debate.
My parliamentary hero has always been that remarkable small man from Yorkshire, William Wilberforce, who, against all the odds in his time, spearheaded in Parliament the campaign against the slave trade, and then against slavery, and who, as he died, in 1833, was brought the news that the Bill abolishing slavery itself had passed through both Houses of Parliament. He can and should be an inspiration to us all. But, of course, as one evil is combated—and we have every reason in this country to be proud that we took a lead there—others arise. I was born just before the outbreak of the Second World War. I remember being taken to the cinema and seeing those newsreels from Belsen, from which my mother tried to protect me, but my father said I should see them and realise what evil mankind can be capable of. When I was a young Member of Parliament, in another place, I had the great honour of being chairman of the campaign for the release of Soviet Jewry.
Those were evils that were combated, but at enormous cost. And now, what are we to do to take a lead against unspeakable atrocities being committed in China? A great nation that persecutes its minorities can never be great in stature, however great it may be in size, and we have to realise that. No nation can be great in stature, as ours has been in the past, unless it is prepared to stand up and say, “This is something we cannot accept”. It is often said that he who sups with the devil must use a long spoon, and he who trades with a nation that is committing bestial atrocities against its own people has to say, “Where is our moral compass in all this?”
Of course, there are things we cannot do, but there are things we can do. My noble friend Lord Polak talked about the forthcoming Winter Olympics, as did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. They were right: it is not a futile gesture to say that we will not take part, and I hope we will not. Certainly, there should be no participation on a diplomatic level, but I do not think there should be participation on the ski slopes either. I think we have to nail our colours to the mast here. We have to be very careful. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, spoke again—she has done so before—about cotton. We have to be able to say that we want to keep our hands as clean as we can and try to find our moral compass again. We want to try to point the way to how one should deal with nations that are perpetrating great evil.
The Chinese have done it before, in Tibet. They have virtually extinguished a unique civilisation. They have done it in other parts of their own enormous country and they are doing it now. I do not think there is any more appalling, revolting manifestation of what they are doing than the trading of organs. It is despicable, and I do not mind if my Chinese visa is withdrawn for saying that, because I say it deliberately. Yes, we have to engage diplomatically with the Chinese—of course we do—but we have to engage from a point of moral strength. I hope that the message will go out today that we in this House will not give up supporting the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in his campaign: we will all make it our campaign and I hope we will have an encouraging response from the Minister.
Brexit: Food, Environment, Energy and Health (European Union Committee Report)
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, as always, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who made some extremely important points in her speech, as did all colleagues who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He was an admirable, exemplary chairman of the committee and it was a joy to serve under him—particularly as the committee never met. Nobody has mentioned this during the debate, but all our meetings were on Zoom and Microsoft Teams. I grew to know those two devices, to have enormous admiration for those who made it possible, but to develop an increasing hatred for the wretched business, because I could not sit, as I can now, with my colleagues, look them in the face and discuss things with them: we were all on the screen.
That is where the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was brilliant, because he made enormous efforts to make sure that every one of us got in. We had to raise hands or press a yellow button, but his eyesight was impeccable, his judgment marvellous and we all got in. During all that time, as has been referred to, we were served by a wonderful staff, with Jennifer, our clerk, Laura and the others. They, too, were exemplary, but I have still not met them, and we will not meet them until the beginning of next month, when we are having a retrospective on the committee. I just think that ought to go on record.
I find this a somewhat dismal occasion, not just because the committee no longer exists but because—and one hates to say this—we told you so. When the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, quoted from paragraphs 35 and 80, my immediate reaction was would that people had taken these points seriously. The underlying lesson—and I hope the Minister takes this back—is that when you try to achieve great things to artificial deadlines you almost always fail. I made the point time and time again. I was not trying to be a remoaner; I was not trying to suggest Brexit could or should not happen. But I begged the Prime Minister in this very Room when he came to speak to a gathering of the Association of Conservative Peers not to be driven by a deadline.
Of course, what happened as a result of the deadline is the Irish protocol. The Prime Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who were responsible for agreeing it—not only commending it to Parliament but urging us to get it through—now seem to find that it is full of holes, which indeed it is.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, my noble friend Lord Caithness, in a perceptive and excellent speech, and my noble friend the Duke of Montrose—everyone —has pointed to things that could have been done better and to threats that now exist to British farming, in particular. Deals that have been driven through with Australia and New Zealand are going to threaten the sheep farmers in Wales, potato growers in Scotland and all sorts of other people. I took part in the debates, as I think did everyone present, on the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill. We welcomed both of them but their success hangs in the balance, and it is important that we notch things down a bit as we move over the next few rather difficult weeks.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made an extremely good point about COP 26. Like him, I metaphorically take off my hat to Alok Sharma for the way in which he conducted proceedings. He deserves the thanks of us all, but he did not have united European back-up, because we were not able to lead it as we had done when the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was wielding his stick a few years ago. It really is crucial, more important than anything else, that we repair relations with our European friends and neighbours. The world is getting more dangerous almost by the day, but the atlas does not change. The map of Europe does not change. France remains our nearest neighbour. Germany, although going through a difficult time at the moment, remains the most powerful member of the European Union. We are no longer part of that team and we cannot be. Talk of having another referendum is rubbish, but we owe it to ourselves to try to have the closest possible relations with our European friends and neighbours who, until a short time ago, were our partners as well.
When the noble Lord, Lord Frost, delivered his Statement in the Chamber last week, I reminded him of the famous saying—which was actually written by WS Gilbert, but it was on the desk of Harold Macmillan—that
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot”.
This is the time when we must not bang drums or issue threats, warnings or deadlines. We must come to an agreement. The statement made by the European Union a few weeks ago indicated that it is ready for that.
Negotiations mean that everybody has to be prepared to give, take and compromise. But it would be a political tragedy of the worst sort if we did poison relations with our European friends and neighbours through over-haste. Your Lordships should think of the trouble brewing in the Balkans at the moment, the stand-off with the Polish-Belarusian border, and the trouble brewing, which has been there for a long time, in Ukraine. Never has there been a greater need for a cohesive Europe: one that can develop relations with some of the difficult countries—we must have better relations with Russia—but one that can work so far as possible together.
I have strayed off the subject a little. I do not apologise for that, because I believe this report was extremely perceptive and far-seeing. The evidence we received from some very fine people had one thread running through it: we must not leave with no deal. Thank God we did not leave with no deal, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, indicated in his opening remarks, a real bust-up over the protocol could put the deal itself in jeopardy. We must not have that. We owe it to our farmers, our fishermen and others.
It was a privilege to be on this committee. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and all my colleagues for that privilege, and all the officials. But if this report —which is now outdated; we have all said that—can be reread in the Government and if they could realise that some of the pitfalls could have been avoided, this debate will not have been in vain. My only request to my noble friend is that he draws the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, to this debate and to what colleagues have said. We are united across party, as we were in this committee throughout its deliberations, in wanting the Government and Brexit to succeed. But we must use all our diplomatic gifts—and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, is a trained diplomat—to make sure that that happens.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The Prime Minister continues to engage on this issue with his counterpart, as does the entire FCDO. The Government continue to prioritise this case, as I have relayed to the House, and will continue to do so.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister not accept that the answers that he is giving this afternoon—stonewalling answers—are doing no good to the Government and, most of all, no good to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe? Can we please accept that this country does owe this money? Can it not be paid immediately to the United Nations? That would be a good way of having it transferred. Can we not have a positive move to get back this poor woman, who has been tortured and incarcerated as an innocent being?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, at the risk of being repetitive, it would be a grave error for this Government to behave as though that historic debt is in any way connected to the incarceration of Nazanin, in the manner in which the noble Lord suggests. It would be disastrous foreign policy.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Lord Cormack Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with all my noble friend’s points. I assure him that the United Kingdom Government are using their position within NATO—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, made that point. We will be discussing this at the next meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers later this month, as well as how we can further support Bosnia-Herzegovina. My honourable friend the Europe Minister was in Bosnia over the summer, and I am in the midst of planning a visit to the region with my preventing sexual violence in conflict responsibilities, and to Bosnia specifically.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, as the first chairman of the All-Party Group for Bosnia in the other place, and one who was much involved in all the debates urging our then Government to take more decisive action, I am deeply distressed to think there is any possibility of further conflict. Will my noble friend use every endeavour he has, perhaps liaising with my noble friend Lady Helic, who knows more about this than the rest of us put together, to do what they can collectively to impress that we must never have another Srebrenica? That was a stain on Europe. I have not discussed it with her, but I think my noble friend Lady Helic would be well placed to give my noble friend every help and advice that he needs.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I assure my noble friend that I know our noble friend Lady Helic well, and she does not need support or encouragement in giving advice to me as Minister of State. Indeed, I am regularly welcoming her insights on a variety of issues, particularly in her work on PSVIC. My noble friend is correct that she has deep insight on the conflict.
On a personal note, in a previous career just after securing my job in the City, I engaged through Save the Children in a direct visit to the region when the conflict broke out. I have also visited Srebrenica on a number of occasions. The annihilation of a complete community, young boys and men in particular, who were taken out for simply being of a particular nationality and faith, should never ever happen again anywhere—let alone in Europe. Perhaps it is a sombre reflection for us in your Lordships’ House; I said to my Private Secretary as we walked across that we often talk of conflicts that are remote, but today we are talking of emerging conflicts on our continent once again.