Syria

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Baroness asks a very important question. She will be familiar with the initiative to prevent sexual violence, to which the Foreign Secretary has given a huge amount of time and energy. Too often, as in the case of Syria and, as we saw, across the Arab world during the Arab uprising, sexual violence is used as a tool of war—sadly not just against women but against men as well. I do not have specific numbers for reports of sexual violence during the Syria conflict. If the office has those numbers, I will write to the noble Baroness and send her those details.

She also asks an important question about the participation of women. Again, the answer is not immediately obvious from the brief that I have here but I will make those inquiries for my own information as well as to ensure that I can send the noble Baroness a detailed response.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, there is widespread concern at what might appear to be unconditional support for the so-called opposition forces, not least because of the treatment of minorities that has been referred to already. Did the Minister see the report in the Sunday Times recently about how a group of Jihadists beheaded a Syrian Christian and literally fed him to the dogs? Did she also see reports concerning links with family members of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda? Therefore, as my noble friend Lord Wright and the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said earlier, should we not be prudent and cautious before feeding a situation where we could simply make bad matters worse? Would the Minister not agree that, in the list of priorities that she mentioned earlier, the treatment of minorities and the upholding of their human rights should be an unconditional issue as far as our support for any opposition group is concerned?

May I also ask her to revisit a reply that her noble friend Lady Northover gave me on 18 December when I asked about support for Hand in Hand for Syria, a British medical charity? She replied that there were no current plans to fund its work. In view of the massive humanitarian needs in Syria at present, will she undertake to look again at that reply?

[Baroness Warsi]

I will look again that reply and I will certainly make inquiries of the Department for International Development. I know that we are currently using international NGOs for the specific work within Syria but if this is an option that could be looked at, and one that DfID feels is appropriate, I will certainly feed that information back to the noble Lord.

I can assure the noble Lord that our support for the opposition is not unconditional. It is very clearly conditional upon the fact that we require reform, we require a plan and we require them to sign up to basic requirements such as the need for equality and non-discrimination towards minorities. We must also be careful since when we make this argument, which has been made before on a number of occasions, it surely cannot be right that we sit here in Britain and feel that the only way that the rights of minorities, including Christians, across the Arab world can be protected is if they are being ruled by a dictator. There surely has to be another way in which Christians and other minorities are protected as part of a democratically elected Government under which all communities feel part of that nation.