Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Marland, who, like a number of previous speakers, have thanked the new Foreign Secretary for posts to which he appointed them. I, too, wish to say my grateful thanks to the new Foreign Secretary for posts to which he appointed me —but I remind him that, on one occasion, he specifically required me to work alongside Michael Gove.

I genuinely welcome the Foreign Secretary to his new post and congratulate him on an excellent maiden speech. I suspect that I am right, although perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong, that, despite all his years in the other place, this is the first time that he has ever led for the Government in introducing a piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that we have mixed views about—but certainly, as others have already pointed out, because of the inadequacies of our trade scrutiny arrangements in this place, we are being asked to look at a small piece of legislation that will enable the implementation of a very large trade deal, with which your Lordships’ House has not had a real opportunity to engage.

In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, we have not had the opportunity to all buy into the deal, and we are having to do it in the absence of some quite important information—information, for instance, that would be contained in the report to which the excellent chair of the International Agreements Committee has referred. We have not got access, because it is not yet ready, to the government-requested report from the Trade and Agriculture Commission. We are short of information, yet it is sadly one of the few opportunities that we have to debate the CPTPP, its processes and outcome, because we have this one Bill to look at.

As others have pointed out, on these Benches we are well aware that there are some benefits of the deal—particularly some significant geopolitical benefits, I would accept. But notwithstanding the rhetoric of major economic benefits, or the optimistic predictions of our new Foreign Secretary, the figures on the economic benefit show that it is very limited. After all, it was the Government’s own figures, as we have heard, that show that the increase in GDP will be only 0.1% of GDP—and I remind other noble Lords who earlier said that it was 1%. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, reminded us, that is up to a period up to 2040, so it is taking into account all the potential growth that would take place in the region. After all, it is a tiny fraction that we will get back in comparison to the 4% loss of GDP because of our exit from the European Union.

As we have heard, there are many concerns about the deal, such as on weak provisions on labour rights, which some argue could lead us to importing goods made by exploited labour. However, to echo my noble friend Lord Razzall, I want to concentrate on the area of intellectual property, with concerns that I raised some years ago, when I served as a member of the International Agreements Committee. The whole House has accepted on many occasions that our creative industries have become the powerhouse of the economy, and intellectual property rights and their enforcement are their lifeblood.

As the CPTPP negotiations began, the creative industries, recognising that other countries in the group with less developed creative sectors would have less concern about IP issues, made a number of recommendations about what the Government should seek to achieve. One such issue, as we have heard, was in relation to the patent grace period, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and by my noble friend. The Government were warned that the CPTPP rules require its members to have a grace period for patents, whereas the European patents convention does not. If we agreed to the rules, it would put at risk the UK’s vitally important membership of the European Patent Office. I am genuinely delighted that the Government were successful in enabling us to set aside the CPTPP grace period provisions—but, sadly, few others of the sector’s asks were achieved. I suspect that that was because we were in the position of being a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker.

When, for instance, we were negotiating with New Zealand for a trade deal, it was between equal partners, and as a result of the pressure we were able to put on, New Zealand agreed to increase its copyright term to 70 years after the death of an author. We had clout in those negotiations. But the sections of CPTPP relevant to copyright term are currently suspended, so, as a start, the sector wanted our Government to press for the suspension to be lifted. However, as the Government had no clout in the negotiations, it was not, so our creators, except where we have bilateral deals, lose out.

In the digital environment, content owners rely on a range of measures to prevent piracy and the resulting loss of economic value, but given that the CPTPP provisions that support these protections are also suspended, the sector again wanted the suspension to be lifted. It was not, so there is no protection of UK content owners in important markets such as Malaysia and Vietnam. The CPTPP has no measures in relation to artists’ resale rights, meaning that UK artists and their estates are unable to receive royalties when their work is sold on the secondary market in CPTPP member countries which have not introduced such a right unilaterally. The sector’s request for the inclusion of ARR went unanswered, and our artists lose out.

Of particular concern is that the CPTPP does not have the same firm view as the UK that creators should have almost exclusive rights on their work, underpinning their ability to generate income. The CPTPP, for example, talks of

“a balance of rights and obligations”

in the interests or promotion of technological advances. This, the sector believes—maybe the Minister could comment on this when he winds up—means that technology and social media companies could have undue influence in determining the reasonable rights of creators; again, there is the potential for those creators to lose out.

So, overall, it is not a good deal for our creative industries, many of which are worried that, by signing up to it, we have indicated a willingness to accept a lower level of protection for copyright than exists in the UK, and that it will set a worrying precedent for future negotiations. Another country might say, for example, “Well, you were happy to sign up to that level of protection with them, so why not with us?”

Clause 5 introduces a further concern, which has already been touched on. It introduces an obligation on the UK whereby foreign rights holders and performers, for works within the UK, would receive payment where they currently do not. That is fine, and one would assume therefore that the obligations will be limited to CPTPP country rights holders and performers. But the Bill as it stands, bizarrely, does not limit this extension to CPTPP countries; rather, it provides for secondary legislation that will, in due course, specify the countries to be covered. Will the Minister confirm that consultation on which countries are to be included is going to take place during the passage of the Bill? Does he at least accept that we are being asked yet again to make decisions without having all the facts, and certainly without knowing what the implications will be?

I hope that the Minister will make it clear in his response that the Government accept that the IP chapter of the agreement, including the suspension of some of the IP provisions, is deficient, is a real cause for concern among the creative industries and, frankly, is not what the UK expects from future international trade agreements.

Safety of Journalists Abroad

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

I am pleased to have secured the debate, which will focus on the sadly topical issue of the safety of journalists abroad. The debate is timely, as a meeting is to take place tomorrow in Paris at which the UNESCO international programme for the development of communication will consider the report, “The Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity”. The UK will be represented by Professor Ivor Gaber.

Recent news has drawn much international attention to these issues. On 22 February, in the Syrian city of Homs, the American-born veteran war reporter Marie Colvin died, along with French photographer Remi Ochlik, when a shell hit the building in which she was sheltering. The 56-year-old had been a reporter for The Sunday Times since 1985 and had covered conflicts from Chechnya to the Arab spring. She won glowing posthumous accolades. The Foreign Secretary said:

“For years she shone a light on stories that others could not and placed herself in the most dangerous environments to do so.... She was utterly dedicated to her work, admired by all of us who encountered her, and respected and revered by her peers”.

The priest at her funeral said, simply, that she was

“a voice to the voiceless.”

Sometimes, reporters such as Marie Colvin play a greater role than that of providing a voice—Peter Oborne, in The Daily Telegraph, wrote:

“At times, Colvin herself intervened in history, as she did in 1999 in East Timor when she helped save the lives of 1,500 refugees encircled by Indonesian troops in a United Nations compound. The situation was so dangerous that the UN commander wanted to evacuate, leaving the refugees to their fate. But Colvin insisted on staying behind, thus shaming the UN commander into staying - and averting a potential massacre.”

Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik are not the only journalists and media workers to have lost their lives in the course of their duties since the start of this year. Each year the International News Safety Institute publishes its “Killing the Messenger” report. These reports show, on average, two deaths among people working in news media every week—last year, for example, the INSI reported 124 deaths. Already in 2012, there have been 23 deaths, eight of them in Syria. Far more have been injured or have been the victims of abduction, hostage taking, harassment and intimidation.

Because of the threats that they face, many journalists have had to resort to self-censorship in an effort to protect themselves, rather than lose their lives. Not all those deaths, injuries and threats to lives, freedom or jobs have been to journalists and others working in war zones. Some 60% of the loss of life in 2011 occurred away from conflict zones, in areas where investigations were underway into organised crime, corruption or other illegal activities.

A press freedom violation can be an assassin’s bullet aimed to kill an investigative journalist and to intimidate and silence his colleagues. It can be the knock on the door from the police, bringing in a reporter to question her on her sources, or put her in jail with or without a proper trial. It can be a restrictive media law, which puts the power over editorial content into the hands of censors and press courts.

Journalists and media staff have been killed in the line of duty. Often they are local journalists working their own patch who died because someone did not like what they wrote or said, or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every job has its risks, and journalists, whose job it is to bring into the open what someone wants hidden, are at greater risk than most, but the risks today are unacceptably high. In some parts of the world, harassment, threats and worse have become an unavoidable part of the job. In war or civil conflict, the risks often escalate: for example, the invasion of Iraq triggered the deaths of 350 journalists. Worldwide, more than 1,000 have died in the last 10 years, but sadly, unless the life is that of a well known western correspondent, the world barely notices.

Organisations seeking to ensure improved security for journalists deserve our support and thanks. I have already mentioned INSI, which, since 2004, has provided basic safety training free of charge to more than 2,000 news media personnel in 23 countries. Other such organisations include Reporters Sans Frontières, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Freedom of Expression eXchange and the Inter American Press Association. Our own National Union of Journalists, which has 38,000 members, is the voice for journalism and for journalists across the UK and Ireland and is affiliated to the International Federation of Journalists, which is the world’s largest organisation of journalists, with around 600,000 members in more than 100 countries.

Both the NUJ and the IFJ monitor press freedom violations and campaign for greater safety for journalists who are at the greatest risk and have the least protection. They have established support for journalists and media staff in conflict areas through rapid safety training, and ensured that leading media organisations, such as the BBC, Reuters, CNN and major newspaper groups, put health and safety in the mainstream of international media development strategies, take responsibility for the safety of journalists and provide for their safety training.

Despite that work, the continuing high level of media deaths cries out for more action by international institutions, such as the United Nations, to force Governments to pay more attention to the safety crisis affecting journalists and media workers. More has to be done to improve safety and to combat impunity. Impunity occurs when the political will to back investigations into the killing of journalists is absent; when legal frameworks are inadequate; when judges are weak or corrupt; when the police or investigating authorities are incompetent; when meagre resources are assigned to those responsible for providing security and enforcing the law; and when official negligence and corruption are rife. Combating impunity is a vital element of freedom and security. If there is little fear of the case ever being investigated, let alone the perpetrator being identified and brought to trial, there is no deterrent against people threatening, harming or killing journalists. Recent reports from IFEX show that in nine out of 10 cases of journalists being killed while performing their professional duties, the perpetrators of the crimes are never prosecuted. Other research shows that more than two thirds of the people responsible are not even identified because of the failure to carry out sufficiently thorough investigations. In effect, in many countries it is almost risk-free to kill a journalist—murder has become the easiest, and perhaps the cheapest and most effective way of silencing troublesome journalists.

The record of Governments in far too many states in tackling impunity is appalling. I have heard reports of intimidation of staff and families of the BBC’s Persian service. At one end of the spectrum, there are countries such as Gambia where journalists have been targeted, oppressed and jailed. In response to international campaigns in support of Gambian journalists, Yahya Jammeh, the President of the Gambia, declared:

“I will kill anybody caught tarnishing the image of my government. I will kill you and nothing will come of it.”

Of the situation in Syria, the French journalist Jean-Pierre Perrin said:

“The Syrian army issued orders to kill any journalists that set foot on Syrian soil.”

Given the army’s relevance in the death of Marie Colvin, what information does the Minister have on that claim? Since November 2009, the International Federation of Journalists has been campaigning to force the Aquino administration in the Philippines to investigate fully the killing of 21 journalists and media workers in what has become known as the Ampatuan massacre. Some progress has been made, but not enough. For many years in Somalia, which is one of the most dangerous African countries for journalists, no crime committed against a journalist has been investigated and so no one has been convicted, and now it appears that the current Transitional Federal Government have been persecuting journalists, their union and media organisations. I am pleased that our Foreign Secretary raised the safety of journalists with President Sheikh Sharif during his visit to Mogadishu in February, and that he has pressed for an independent inquiry into the death of Hassan Osman Abdi.

What about the leading democracies? The United States has consistently refused to carry out credible and independent investigations of the killing of journalists, including the killing of ITN’s Terry Lloyd near Basra in March 2003, and the killing of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso and others when US forces fired on Baghdad’s Palestine hotel in April 2003. The IFJ has catalogued 16 other cases of journalists who have died since March 2003 at the hands of US soldiers in Iraq without a proper investigation being carried out. When the world’s leading democracy refuses to prosecute those who are responsible for serious violations, what chance do we have when we confront the likes of President Jammeh of the Gambia? But what of our own Government?

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Before he moves on and talks about our own Government, I want to put on record a tribute to Martin O’Hagan, the only journalist specifically targeted and assassinated during all the troubles in Northern Ireland. He was murdered in September 2001 and sadly no one has ever been convicted of his murder. It is important that everything possible is done to bring to justice the people who carry out attacks on journalists here, and I wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his endeavours to raise this issue.

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[Mr Foster]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for highlighting that case. He is absolutely right to say that our own Government must go out of their way to ensure that all cases of our own journalists being killed, whether at home or abroad, are thoroughly investigated. In some respects, however, I do not believe that our own Government have a perfectly clean record on this issue.

Portuguese Timor, as East Timor was then called, became the focus of Indonesian destabilisation in 1974. A civil war from August 1975 to September 1975 killed more than 1,000 people, and instability and unrest continued afterwards. Into that situation flew two British citizens, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, who were working for the late Kerry Packer’s Channel Nine network in Australia. They headed for the East Timorese border town of Balibo, where on 13 October 1975 they met three other journalists who were working for the rival Channel Seven network in Australia. Three days later, all five were dead. Their deaths form the basis of an excellent new film, simply called “Balibo”. As I said in a previous Westminster Hall debate:

“When Britons die abroad, we anticipate our Government doing all they can to help the relatives. We expect the Government to seek as much information as possible and to share it with the relatives. Sadly, in this case, the opposite happened. From 1975 until 1995, there was almost complete inaction. The Government were involved in a disgraceful cover-up.”—[Official Report, 1 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 97WH.]

Our Government knew about the planned invasion and our ambassador, Mr Ford, advised the Indonesians to keep it covert; consequently no warning was given to the journalists. After their killings, Mr Ford suggested that

“we should ourselves avoid representations to the Indonesians about them”,

to which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office replied, “We agree”.

Eventually it was left to a coroner in New South Wales in Australia to conduct an inquest into the death of Brian Peters, one of the two British journalists who had been killed. Her report in November 2007 said that all five journalists had been “deliberately killed” and she named those responsible. She said that Brian Peters had died

“from wounds sustained when he was shot and/or stabbed deliberately, and not in the heat of battle, by… Indonesian Special Forces”,

including Christoforus da Silva and Captain Yunus Yosfiah. She also said that Brian Peters was killed

“on the orders of Captain Yosfiah, to prevent him from revealing that Indonesian Special Forces had participated in the attack on Balibo.”

The Australian coroner concluded that an international conflict was under way at the time, so the killing of the journalists was a war crime. There are two named Indonesians, both still alive, who are credibly accused of war crimes against two British citizens, but still, five years after the inquest and 37 years after the murders, all our Government are doing is waiting to see whether the Australian federal police will instigate war crimes proceedings. In my view, that is not an adequate response. Our Government should be taking their own action.

If individual Governments are failing, what about the various regional bodies? Sadly, those who look to those bodies for help are often disappointed because they are apparently spineless. Journalists under fire in Asia, the middle east and Africa expect little, if any, support from the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Arab League or the African Union. The African Union, for example, has its headquarters in Ethiopia, which is a known abuser of press freedom, and its human rights body is in, of all places, Gambia, which is a known jailer of journalists.

If more action is to be taken, we have to look to wider international bodies. UNESCO is the sole UN specialist agency with a mandate to defend and promote freedom of expression and its corollary, press freedom, as well as to combat impunity. It has various tools and instruments at its disposal, including international humanitarian laws, universal human rights laws, covenants, declarations and resolutions. They range from UNESCO’s resolution 29, which condemns violence against journalists and obliges states to prevent, investigate and punish crimes against journalists, to the establishment of the Guillermo Cano world press freedom prize, as well as the annual world press freedom day, which is on May 3 each year. All those instruments make it clear that journalists, including embedded journalists, are civilians and must be protected as such. In addition, the Geneva conventions define the murder or ill-treatment of journalists in times of war or major civil unrest as a war crime. Journalists have the same rights as civilians in armed conflicts, whether those conflicts are between nations or situations of widespread civil conflict.

Those instruments are meant to compel Governments to abide by international laws and standards, but the sad reality today is that not many journalists can rely on international institutions to defend their rights when they disappear, are jailed or are murdered. A few years ago, journalists were full of hope when the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1738, which reasserted that journalists and media professionals engaged in areas of armed conflict

“shall be respected and protected”.

Unfortunately, that hope is getting thinner by the day, as UN bureaucracies are often reluctant to confront certain Governments.

Some countries do not even provide information they are requested to give voluntarily. Since 2008, the council of the international programme for the development of communication has encouraged member states to submit information, on a voluntary basis, about actions they have taken to prevent impunity and about the status of investigations conducted into each of the killings of journalists condemned by UNESCO. Such reports are intended to be included in a public report submitted by the IPDC to UNESCO. The 2010 IPDC report, which dealt with crimes committed in 2006 and 2007, showed that only 18 of the relevant 29 countries provided detailed information on judicial follow-up into cases of the killing of journalists in their country. The 2012 IPDC report, which dealt with crimes committed in 2008 and 2009, showed an even worse response rate, with just nine of the relevant 27 countries submitting responses.

Tomorrow, at the IPDC meeting being held at UNESCO, the latest IPDC report will be discussed, as well as a final draft of the “UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity”. That plan is based on a consultation involving all relevant UN agencies, following, I am pleased to say, an initiative led by the UK at a previous IPDC meeting. The aim of the plan is to work

“toward the creation of a free and safe environment for journalists and media workers in both conflict and non-conflict situations, with a view to strengthening peace, democracy and development worldwide.”

The plan includes strengthening UN mechanisms; doing much more to shine the spotlight on countries that appear to be dragging their feet in the protection of journalists; raising awareness; assisting member states to develop their own legislation and mechanisms for protecting journalists; improving collaboration with relevant agencies; and developing further safety initiatives, which might include the creation of so-called media corridors in conflict zones. I am pleased that it was a UK-inspired initiative that led to the development of the plan.

I welcome the statement given in response to a parliamentary question on 22 February 2012, by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), that the Government “fully supports” UN initiatives to improve the safety of journalists, but I believe that our Government can go further. For example, ours is one of the few developed countries that does not contribute financially to the IPDC’s work. We are a member of its council, but we do not contribute to it. We should do so, especially as much of its funding is used to train journalists in how best to protect themselves from physical attack. We should also consider how we can help other organisations that do similar work. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that. Perhaps he will also explain why our Government does not contribute to world press freedom day.

Our Government can go further in what they press UNESCO to do. Currently, member states are only “encouraged” to supply information on work to combat impunity and on investigations into the deaths of journalists. We should surely press for such reports to be more detailed and mandatory. Reports should also be published sooner and in full—the report on killings in 2010-11 is not due for publication until 2014. The IPDC should be encouraged to speed up the process. Such actions, together with the widest publication of reports—or of failure to report—will help to put teeth into UN Security Council resolution 1738.

Furthermore, we must press UNESCO to make it absolutely clear that the promotion of safety and the ending of impunity have to apply in non-conflict areas as well as in war zones. “Conflict” should be viewed in its broadest interpretation. States where there is impunity should have to face a persistent international publicity campaign, not once a year but every time they acquiesce in, sanction, or turn a blind eye to the murder of a journalist. They should be made responsible for their negligence and, in many cases, their complicity. Again, I look forward to the Minister’s response to that point. We need to be seen to take these matters seriously, so will the Minister consider one other suggestion: that annually the UK voluntarily releases and distributes full details of its representations and actions relating to the rights and lives of threatened journalists?

Today hundreds of journalists are in jail, and scores are killed each year. Journalists working in dangerous conditions feel isolated and abandoned by the very international institutions created to protect their rights. I want our Government to speak out forcefully for press freedom and push back against member states that seek to block international institutions from fulfilling their mandate and enforcing international laws.

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[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

Thank you, Mrs Main, for giving me the opportunity to conclude this fairly brief but important debate. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who has a long record in his 20 years in the House of championing the safety of journalists. It is to his credit and to the benefit of the House that we have the opportunity to discuss it this afternoon. I thank other hon. Members who have taken the opportunity to take part in the deliberations. Of course, the main business of the House today has been the Budget statement in the main Chamber, but there are many other important things happening in the world and the one that we are debating warrants our attention.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for her speech and for highlighting the threat faced by women journalists, which may sometimes be greater than that faced by males. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) for his praise both for the Foreign Office—such praise does not always flow as freely during debates as we might wish—and for the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I shall pass the expression of gratitude on to him.

I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for his speech today, and for the consistent and manifestly sincere interest he takes in the subject, and to the Labour spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), for her contribution. To answer her question, I was in Colombia on Wednesday and Thursday last week, and although there were considerable discussions about trade and commercial opportunities and about political and diplomatic relations between Colombia and Britain, there was also a focus in my programme on human rights issues in the broadest sense, including threats to journalists and trade unionists, and the action that the Colombian Government and others were taking to deal with those threats. It was a broad-ranging visit, which concentrated very much on that issue.

I should say at the outset that the Government are deeply concerned about the safety of journalists; we strongly condemn their harassment and intimidation, and of course the assassinations that take place in some awful cases. I am full of admiration, as are others who have spoken in the debate, for those who bring us news from around the world, many of whom take enormous risks and who occasionally pay a great price to provide that service. I think we are all sometimes inclined to take it for granted that we can switch on the television or radio or read a newspaper and feel that we have been transported to an area of great hazard and danger and given an instant understanding of the political situation and threat to life there. Sometimes it is easy to forget that the person who brings that news and information to us is in that environment, as are the cameraman and other support staff. At great risk to themselves they inform us, and without their doing so we would not be informed.

The efforts of such people enable voices that would otherwise go unheard and events that would otherwise go unseen to reach audiences not just in the United Kingdom, but around the world. Although there are distinguished journalists of all nationalities, British journalists and news organisations play a leading role in informing not just British audiences but global ones about global events. The deaths of Marie Colvin, Remi Ochlik and Rami al-Sayyed while reporting with great bravery from Homs are a terrible reminder of the risks that journalists take to report the truth. Every Member who has contributed to this debate has rightly dwelt on their deaths and paid tribute to their work.

This Government attach great importance to freedom of the media, which with the freedom to express one’s views is fundamental to a strong democracy. A free press allows space for challenge and innovation, supports transparency and deters corruption. It exposes human rights violations and ensures that people can exchange ideas. All citizens must be allowed to discuss and debate issues, challenge their Governments and make informed decisions.

Sadly, according to studies by both Freedom House and the Economist Intelligence Unit, we are witnessing a decline in media freedoms around the world. That is affecting both print media, which in an increasing number of countries are coming under state control or heavy state influence, and the internet, where there has been an increase in blocking and censorship. Many Governments do not wish to be accountable to their people and want to remove all checks on their power.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath has set out comprehensively, that means that in many parts of the world the work of journalists, bloggers and others is obstructed. They are harassed, monitored, detained and, on occasion, subjected to violence. Some have paid the highest price—we have discussed some such cases today. According to the latest figures from Reporters Without Borders, 11 journalists have been killed so far this year in connection with their work. In 2011, 66 journalists were killed and 71 were kidnapped, while 199 bloggers and netizens were arrested and 62 physically attacked. Although such occurrences may not be the norm, they are not quite the exception either. For many years—the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington referred to this—journalists have faced problems that, while they may or may not be isolated incidents, add up to a consistent pattern of threats to them.

It is vital that the international community continues to speak out in support of press freedom and the protection of journalists. The UK is supportive of the work of UNESCO and looks forward to a positive outcome from its meeting in Paris on the safety of journalists. We fully support the aim to strengthen the mandate and working methods of UNESCO and other United Nations bodies to tackle violence against journalists and the high levels of impunity. We welcome initiatives that encourage UN agencies and special rapporteurs to work closer together and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath has proposed, we are already pressing UNESCO to be more transparent and speed up the publication of its information on the killing of journalists. We also support the proposals to raise greater awareness of the issue and to encourage states to fulfil their commitments on media freedoms. We believe that concerted, co-ordinated action is vital. Later, I will talk about countries that are of particular concern to us—another issue raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington—but severe abuses take place in many countries.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bath is right to say that the UK is not currently funding the work of the international programme for the development of communication. I do not wish to sound like I am passing the ball within Government, but that decision was taken by the Department for International Development, although the Government may revisit it in due course. I assure my right hon. Friend that we are providing, and will continue to provide, assistance to journalists working in difficult environments. We are doing so via support for specific projects, such as an ongoing one in Mexico with Article 19 as part of our human rights and democracy programme fund, and other mechanisms, such as the Lifeline fund for embattled non-governmental organisations, which provides emergency assistance to journalists working in support of human rights.

In times of armed conflict, states bear the primary responsibility to respect, protect and meet the needs of civilians. We encourage all states to respect the Geneva conventions affirming that journalists are civilians under international humanitarian law. We fully support UN Security Council resolution 1738, passed in 2006, which makes it clear that deliberate attacks on journalists, media professionals and associated personnel who are reporting on armed conflicts and are not directly participating in hostilities are unacceptable.

At the 31st international conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva in December 2011, we made three further pledges on the protection of journalists, namely: integrating specific components on the protection of journalists into the training of our armed forces; providing journalists embedded with our armed forces with security training; and ensuring that national criminal law makes it possible to prosecute those who commit serious violations against journalists. We will report back on our progress to the 32nd international conference in 2015.

As highlighted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s annual human rights reports, our missions around the world continue to raise freedom of expression issues in countries of concern. That will be reflected in the latest human rights report, to be published in a few weeks’ time. We consistently raise individual cases of attacks against journalists and call for prompt and full investigations into them. We stated publicly our concerns about the treatment of foreign journalists in China when, in February 2011, several were physically intimidated or detained without explanation. In Azerbaijan, support from the UK and others resulted in the release and pardon of blogger Mr Fatullayev on 26 May. In July 2011, we condemned attacks in Belarus, where more than a dozen journalists were detained, beaten and their equipment broken during peaceful protests.

We also frequently raise our significant concerns about the fate of journalists in Iran. A 2011 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists showed that, once again, Iran has more journalists in jail than any other country in the world. The arrest of six journalists in September and October who were accused of working for the BBC and of espionage was particularly troubling. All have now been released, but too many others remain in prison.

My right hon. Friend talked about events in East Timor and Syria. I share the concerns about the two British journalists, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, and the other journalists killed in East Timor in 1975. The UK Government firmly believe that those responsible for their deaths should be held to account. Following publication of the Australian coroner’s report, the authorities there took the decision to review the evidence and consider the conclusions of previous investigations into the case. For legal and investigative reasons, they are unable to provide specific details of their work, which is ongoing. I fully appreciate the frustrations with the pace of progress, but the FCO continues to act as an intermediary between the British families involved and the Australian authorities, and will do so for as long as necessary.

[Mr Foster]

I know that the Minister has to read what his brief says, but will he tell us whether he seriously believes it is acceptable for five years to elapse since the conclusion of the coroner’s work before the Government decide whether they are going to bring about a war crimes proceeding on behalf of two of their citizens who were murdered in East Timor by the Indonesians?

[Mr Browne]

I appreciate the passion with which my right hon. Friend brings us again to that case. Let me undertake to go away and look at the matter in greater detail, because I have not only responsibility for human rights policy in the generality, but geographic responsibility for that part of the world. I give a personal undertaking to him that I will consider what more can be done to assist the families of the journalists concerned. There are practical constraints on the British Government, often bigger than the public or even sometimes Members of Parliament fully appreciate, and obviously we are not operating within our own jurisdiction. Nevertheless, we will do what we can. I will let my right hon. Friend know what more, if anything, we can do in that case.

The other country I wanted to mention before I concluded is Syria, where terrible atrocities continue to be committed. The UK sees it as vital that evidence of those atrocities is systematically gathered, documented and securely stored. What form of accountability or justice processes should take will be for the Syrian people to decide. That will be an essential means of reconciling communities in Syria following the trauma that is being inflicted on them both by the regime and, in some cases, by those on the ground who oppose the regime. We want to make sure that comprehensive justice is done in Syria, which requires that information is gathered according to an international evidential standard suitable for local and international courts.

Let me make our central purpose clear: all those who commit human rights violations or abuses in Syria should and must be held accountable for their actions. We commend the work being done by local organisations, the UN independent commission of inquiry on Syria, Amnesty International and others to document what is happening in Syria. The UK is also directly helping to document those atrocities. After despatching a scoping mission to the region in February, the UK sent a further mission between 27 February and 12 March to gather evidence on human rights violations and abuses committed in Syria. The work undertaken by the mission is necessarily a snapshot, but it has had harrowing accounts of President Assad’s brutal efforts to hold on to power. No one who is responsible can act with impunity or believe that the world will not find out who they are. Justice has a long memory and a long reach. In this case, as in others, there will be a process of accountability.

Once again, I thank my right hon. Friend and others for giving me the opportunity not only to address topical issues of concern, such as the situation in Syria, but to talk about individual cases more generally and to address the wider concerns in the House about the safety in which journalists do—or, in some cases, do not—operate around the world.

I reiterate that the Government believe that journalists must be allowed to express themselves freely and safely within international standards. We strongly condemn their harassment, intimidation and assassination. The role of media professionals remains vital in providing citizens with reliable and accurate information. That role must be protected. The UK is one of the world’s greatest and longest standing democracies, and it transmits around the world our values of freedom of expression and of the importance of people being able to exercise free and informed choices. It is therefore right that we should continue to be at the forefront of setting the highest standards and of insisting that others should meet those standards to the benefit of people around the world.

BBC World Service

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

In case there is any confusion, there is no connection between these reductions and the transfer of the BBC World Service to licence fee funding, which will take place in four years’ time. For the next three years, the BBC World Service will continue to be funded directly out of public expenditure. Just to make it clear for the right hon. Gentleman, the reductions are therefore not the direct consequence of that decision. The services that closed under the previous Government were not just European democracies in the European Union; they also closed the Kazakh and Thai services. The closures were much more widespread. As I said, the previous Government recognised that closures sometimes had to take place. Labour Members must recognise that unless they oppose all reductions in Government expenditure, sometimes these things have to happen.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Cuts in the jewel in the crown of this country are clearly disappointing. Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the World Service makes a huge contribution to our international development agenda? Is he willing at least to discuss with the Secretary of State for International Development whether his Department, which currently makes no contribution, could make a small contribution? For example, £3 million a year would save the Russian and Mandarin Chinese services.