Venezuela

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not think that is right. I do not have any difficulty in criticising President Putin for his illegal act of launching a full invasion of Ukraine, stealing children from Ukraine, bombing civilians, and destroying infrastructure and energy in the depths of winter. I have no issue complaining about that, and I do not see the moral equivalence between the two events. It is a good thing that Nicolás Maduro is no longer running the country.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept the commendation of a quotation from a previous Secretary General of the United Nations in a different context, where he observed that that military operation was not in accordance with the provisions of the UN charter?

I have two questions for the Minister. First, Vice-President Rodríguez, who has now been sworn in as the interim president, was elected on a joint ticket with Nicolás Maduro. We made it clear that the 2024 election, in which the two of them were elected, was corrupt and falsified, and that we did not recognise it. Does that still apply to the interim president now? Secondly—I think the Minister almost answered this question already—can the Minister confirm that the only strategic objective for us and other Europeans, and, I would hope, for the United States in due course, is for Venezuela to hold free and fair elections under international scrutiny, so that we do not have a repeat of 2024?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Certainly, any elections that are to be held must be free and fair and not any kind of repeat of what we saw the year before last. I take what the noble Lord says about the circumstances of the election of the now President Delcy Rodríguez, but I feel that we are very much in a transitional period right now and there needs to be a degree of pragmatism exercised here. This is one route that is being taken at the moment. Nobody wants to see a descent into a country being run even more than it has been by gangs and narco-terrorists; what we need is stability in order to then move forward through to some democratic process. Clearly, I hope that happens sooner rather than later, but it does need to be done safely in a way that means that the outcome is sustainable and that Venezuela can then move forward for the benefit of all its people.