Mediation, Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding

Thursday 29th October 2026 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

12:10

Moved by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

That this House takes note of the impact of mediation and conflict prevention globally, and the role of the United Kingdom in peacebuilding.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

I note several entries in the register of interests in relation to work I have done recently for the World Bank, the CHD and Conciliation Resources, my position as a ministerial adviser on soft power and my attendance at more than a couple of conferences on mediation and conflict prevention over the past year.

I thank all noble Lords who have volunteered to speak in this debate. I am very grateful for their participation and particularly for the Minister stepping up to address this important topic in his closing response. I am also grateful for this opportunity to address the escalation in violent conflict that we have seen across the globe in recent years and to speak a little about the hope that exists in the efforts that are escalating to prevent violent conflict and what we here in the UK can do to contribute.

Across the globe today we face the highest number of states involved in violent conflict that the world has seen since 1946. A recent report, Peace Works, by 11 international NGOs based here in the UK, showed that the cost to the world of this conflict is about 10% of global GDP—approximately £16 trillion. Nearly 120 million people across the world are displaced today, approximately half of them children. Over 200 million people face humanitarian need as a result of the impact of conflict. Tens of thousands of children are impacted directly by violent conflict every year. Sexual violence is increasing as a weapon of war after many years when it was enthusiastically tackled. Just under a quarter of a million people, combatants and civilians, were killed in 2025 as a result of violent conflict. In the UK we face the impact of that. We see increased division, distrust, the impact of displacement in different parts of the world and disruption, most of all to our energy supplies.

Unfortunately, over the last decade the UK has stepped back rather than stepping up into this challenge. We used to lead the world in global thinking, global action on conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Between 2005 and 2015, successive Governments took the action that was required at home and abroad, and in the multilateral organisations, to make a real difference to combating global conflict, bringing about peaceful resolution and supporting those trying to implement peace agreements. But there has been no refreshing or updating of the conflict prevention strategy of the United Kingdom since the 2016 building stability overseas strategy. Over that decade, we have reduced our capacity for working in the multilateral organisations and, perhaps more importantly, on the ground in local peacebuilding initiatives. Our spend on conflict prevention reduced from £296 million in 2017 to £118 million in 2023; the figures for the next three years have not yet been published.

It was noted, in an independent report this time last year to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Resolution 1325 at the United Nations on women, peace and security, that there was an increasing gap between policy and rhetoric—all very positive, not just about women, peace and security but about peacebuilding and conflict prevention generally—and action and delivery by the UK. Globally, we face enormous challenges, not just because of the scale of the conflict but because a United Nations that was designed for approximately 50 member states in 1946 is increasingly unfit for purpose for nearly 200 states in 2026.

There is good news amid all this misery and violence. We have countries around the world stepping into the area of conflict prevention and mediation. Turkey, for example, joined with Finland in 2010 to establish the Group of Friends of Mediation at the United Nations. It also co-chairs the friends of mediation in the OIC and in the OSCE. Over these last 16 years it has been involved in helping to resolve disputes between Ethiopia and Somalia and in supporting the peace process in the Philippines. Of course, closer to home it has also regularly engaged with a number of conflicts in its own neighbourhood.

In Japan, just this year the new Prime Minister established the international peace mediation unit in its foreign service to take a “more proactive role” in peacefully settling disputes in other places. That is particularly significant in south-east Asia, given some of the challenges that we are seeing.

Qatar has become both a location and a voice for mediation and conflict prevention since 2004. It has been involved in several ceasefires, the return of hostages, the establishment of peace agreements and support for them afterwards, not least recently in Gaza but also in the DRC and on an issue close to my heart—helping to secure the return of some of the Ukrainian children stolen by Russia, many thousands of whom still lie behind Russian lines. The UK established a partnership with Qatar just 12 months ago to take forward this work on mediation and conflict prevention. I would be interested to hear an update from the Minister on the progress of that partnership and the actions that have been or could yet be taken.

There is a common thread running through this international action, which is supplemented by the historic and important work of the Scandinavian states, the Swiss, more recently the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and others. That thread is that every mediation, every sincere effort at conflict prevention, has three key elements. It has to have sincere dialogue; it has to have a sustained, patient and consistent approach to the mediation itself; and increasingly it has to have regional ownership. In the neighbourhood, people understand the historical, cultural and identity issues that will drive many of these conflicts, and which local leaders could bring about an end to the conflict and sustain the peace.

I have seen this for myself, working with the FCDO, with a number of NGOs, with the Philippine Government and with the former Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Bangsamoro region of the Philippines. Centuries of division between the Catholic and Muslim populations of the Philippines and decades of armed conflicts in Muslim Mindanao led to a quarter of a million people dying between 1968 and the early part of the 21st century. But in 2014 the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, supported by the United Kingdom and the international community but led locally and chaired by the first-ever woman to sign a peace agreement anywhere in the world as the chief negotiator, was signed. I have spoken about this process in your Lordships’ House before, but I am delighted to report that in September, just two months ago, the Bangsamoro region held its first elections to the democratically elected autonomous parliament that was promised in the peace agreement. Those elections have been relatively peaceful. The new chief minister will be elected by the new parliament tomorrow in Cotabato. The UK has been a partner in that process, just as we were a partner in Colombia and a driver for the peace process in Somalia. I hope that we will continue to help build peace in the Philippines and elsewhere in south-east Asia. Perhaps the Minister could reflect on that too.

The UK has significant assets that we can contribute to conflict prevention and to mediation and peacebuilding across the world. We have the honour and the responsibility of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Our other networks include NATO, the Commonwealth, partnership with the European Union and our considerable diplomatic assets—still one of the best and most respected diplomatic networks in the world, despite some of the cutbacks of recent years.

Here in the UK, we have the expertise and the trust not just in government but outside government that so many people feel that they can, or at least have been able to, rely on. We must use those soft power assets that we have to be engaged more in the years to come in trying to reverse this increase in violent conflict and support those who are seeking peace.

That same report, Peace Works, that was published just last month and launched here in Parliament by the All-Party Group on Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding, had five key priorities that the UK could follow. The first—this is a statement of purpose that might seem very obvious, but it is not yet up front in the Government’s international strategy— would be to prioritise prevention, and to say that quite clearly and embody it in the work that we do on an everyday basis.

The second would be to energise coalitions. We have discussed this on many occasions. In fact, I think my last contribution in your Lordships’ House was on the coalition of the willing to support Ukraine in this time of desperate conflict against the Russian invasion. But we should be energising other coalitions for peace and supporting and participating where we can. The third would be to harness the capabilities that exist here in the UK, in and outside government, and use them in the way that can be most helpful. The fourth would be, at the same time, to champion local peacebuilders, because ultimately, without local ownership of peacebuilding processes, those processes cannot be sustained. Finally, in a world where technology is increasingly changing the nature of violent conflict, we need also to spearhead technology for peace. We can use many of these new technologies to help support peace rather than just dealing with war.

In securing this debate today, I ask whether the Minister can perhaps clarify for us the current state of funding and the plans for support from the Government for conflict prevention, not just this year but in the next three years. Can the Minister say whether that funding will be maintained in this difficult financial climate or whether there is even a possibility that it might be increased? Will we commit to being a reliable, engaged, long-term partner for not just those international partner countries that we can work with on mediation, conflict prevention and peacebuilding but those trying to build peace on the ground and within countries trying to recover from conflict, to ensure that future generations have a better future? Will we, ultimately, refresh the strategy from 2016 and ensure that we use our assets for the best purposes and the maximum impact as we intervene and take our responsibilities seriously around the world?

We have that responsibility. We have a historic responsibility—a very current responsibility in our role at the United Nations—but we also have an opportunity to use the skills, talents, capabilities and passions of people here in the United Kingdom. Will we use that responsibility and opportunity to not just resist and defend from violent aggression and prepare for that properly, which I fully support, but to contribute to peacebuilding and prevent conflict in a way that will ensure that future generations can live more safely and maximise the opportunities that they deserve?

There has been a bit of debate over the last 18 months within and outside the Government, and perhaps even elsewhere in the world too, about the competition between hard and soft power. Many countries, not least the UK, among the developed democracies of the world, have had to step up, rightly, and improve their hard power capabilities. However, I submit to your Lordships’ House that that cannot be at the expense of soft power. We need to not make this a choice between hard and soft power; we need to use smart power. It will be smart power that will not just allow us to prevent and deter violent conflict against ourselves or our allies but allow us to make a difference around the world and ensure that people are able to live in peace. With that hopefully positive potential outcome to all this, I move the Motion standing in my name.

12:24

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for introducing this debate. There is no more important topic; the world would be a much better place if there could be peace in places today torn by war, with the damage, destruction, and the violence that brings. I agree with a lot of what the noble Lord said about the opportunities for the United Kingdom with our great diplomatic skills, the reach of our diplomatic service, the experience we have gained over many decades and centuries of intervening around the world and, where we could, trying to find resolution of conflict, and with our own experiences bringing peace out of the very difficult situation in Northern Ireland. But, as the noble Lord referred to at the end, one of the reasons the United Kingdom does have a role in the world and is taken seriously is that we have serious and important defence forces. It is most important that they are used with a view to promoting peace where we are intervening, or to right wrongs that can be righted relatively easily by the judicious use of force. That has not always been true in the interventions that we and our NATO allies have made in recent decades in different parts of the world.

I hope the Government, as they go through a rather long defence review and discussion about how best to spend the money that is clearly needed, will have at the forefront of their mind how those forces can be used to deter violence and the outbreak of new conflicts, and how they can be used for expeditionary forces that can make timely interventions where necessary, particularly where those interventions can help create a peace, or where they are needed to police a peace which has been brought about by diplomatic process.

I am sure all of us agree that talking and diplomatic compromise are usually better than conflict extending into aggressive war, and that we would all agree that you only get a war when diplomacy and politics have failed. We all here believe that politics, particularly democratic politics, should be a benign force channelling the conflicts and disagreements into words and arguments and resolving them by compromise or votes. But that will not always be possible in different parts of the world, and that is why we need to choose to spend our money on defence wisely, and to see how we can best help the world through those places where we have power: through the United Nations, through our senior membership of NATO and through the Commonwealth and all the associations that brings.

Looking at defence priorities, it is most important that the Government do not forget that the main priority is to be able to defend these islands and to show that these islands are so well defended that they would be a very hostile environment should any external force wish to intervene. That must mean strengthening our sea forces and our ability to respond to drone and missile attack, and to know how to police our waters when we see possible hostile powers looking enviously at our cables and pipes that are such an important part of our economic progress. So, will the Government please make sure that that is all beefed up and the best modern technology adopted?

When it comes to expeditionary force, we have in the past shown that we have that expeditionary capability, and at times it has been very successful. The Falklands are only free today, and the people of the Falklands are only safe in their wish to be British, because we had enough expeditionary force on our own to drive out the Argentinian invader and restore order. It is most important that we now keep enough force available in case anybody has changed their minds in Argentina about what they might wish to do to try to gain control of islands that are clearly British. British forces were also very successful alongside the American allies leading the operation when Kuwait was liberated, which was a very good example of a sharp use of overwhelming force to right a very obvious wrong where a country had been badly invaded.

Today we have two very big conflicts, which are damaging in themselves—particularly damaging for those involved with them, with too many deaths and too much destruction of property—but also very damaging to the rest of us economically, and because we are morally offended by how they originated. Those are the conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

We need to hear from the Government a bit more about how they wish to proceed. If we take the case of Ukraine, the war has dragged on for so long and we keep Prime Ministers for such little time that there have now been five United Kingdom Prime Ministers who have had to respond to the difficult situation in Ukraine. They have shown complete unity of understanding and purpose, they have all condemned the Russian invasion and the atrocities that have resulted and they have all wished to offer sensible support to the very brave Ukrainians defending their country. But they have all been very clear that we are not going to declare war on Russia, commit British forces or drag NATO into a conflict with Russia. That would greatly worsen the position and is much against everybody’s interests, including those of the Ukrainians, because it would intensify the exchange of barbarity with all the extra firepower it would bring to the conflict.

That means that we in the West have a dilemma: we are not going to offer a military coalition to beat the Russians, and the Ukrainians, fighting very bravely, have not yet been able to evict the Russians from their territory. I would be interested to know what the latest government thinking is about when and if there is going to be any chance for talking to replace war-fighting and for the two belligerents to be brought to the table in a way that might produce some kind of diplomatic answer. It is not obvious how you do it. President Trump has been much criticised for trying to do it; people thought he was being too kind to Russia, which is not something that people want. It would be interesting to know what the United Kingdom and the European Union position on all this is, and whether there is any way through. I think we all feel that five years of war is excessive and that the awful problems it is creating for the Ukrainian people are unacceptable, difficult though it is to see a way out.

In the case of the Middle East, the United Kingdom does not have a big role to play because it appears that we do not really have serious forces to offer to try to police the sea-lanes and to deal with some of the attacks on our allies in the Gulf. America has the near monopoly of power that can be committed to that, and in that sense it is America’s war. We all rest upon what happens in the exchanges between the President of the United States of America and those now leading Iran.

I would be interested to know whether the Government feel there is anything we can do by way of helping our allies in the Gulf, and whether they can see any way forward, which is more likely to be led by local interests there, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, very sensibly said. We too are friends of the UAE, Qatar and so forth—the places most likely to be able to help. It would be good if we could get our defence forces into a shape where we could play a more significant role in trying to help the restoration of normal shipping in the Gulf and Red Sea area. Clearly, energy prices, interest rates and other things globally have been driven up by the extent of that conflict and by the interruptions to trade. In a world that should have plenty of oil and is in transition to using less of it, we find ourselves short of it because of a very nasty war.

I would hope that the defence review would come up with good answers on that combination of defending the home base, which needs more defence, and the appropriate expeditionary force for policing commerce and sea-lanes and going to the aid of allies. It would be very useful to know from the Minister how the Government can extend the skills and the experiences we have had diplomatically and in governing places that are subject to these conflicts. The world desperately needs peace, particularly in those two centres of warfare at the moment, and we would all be better off if that could be brought about.

12:34

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on securing this debate and thank him for introducing it so well. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as chair of Inter Mediate, the charity founded by Jonathan Powell and inspired by the Northern Ireland peace process. Inter Mediate has been engaged for almost 15 years in dialogue with Heads of State and armed groups in attempts to resolve some of the most dangerous and intractable conflicts of our time. Some of its successes, such as Colombia and Mozambique, are matters of public record; the great majority of its work is not, and for good reason. Suffice it to say that I am more proud of the achievements of our remarkable staff, led by Claire Hajaj and Mockbul Ali, than I am of anything else apart from my own family.

When this House amended the National Security (State Threats) Bill this summer to avoid penalising or chilling dialogue between good faith conflict resolution organisations and designated foreign bodies, it was acknowledging that states do not have a monopoly in conflict resolution. Indeed, some of the principles identified by Jonathan Powell in his book Talking to Terrorists may be more usefully performed by non-state entities than by Governments: dialogue with actively hostile groups, the establishment of back channels and the taking of calculated risks to build trust.

Unlike some noble Lords present today, my experience of international conflict resolution is largely second hand. I am not out there cutting deals with national leaders or armed insurgents—just sitting in London checking the kidnap insurance and signing off on the accounts—so I shall not detain your Lordships for long. I venture to make three points that have struck me with particular force during my eight years with Inter Mediate.

First, we in the United Kingdom have a very good name for this sort of activity. I am regularly impressed by the regard in which our diplomats and third-sector peacemakers are held for their influence, their convening power, their trustworthiness and their moral leadership, even—perhaps especially—in those parts of the world where we were once the coloniser. In a 2026 Conciliation Resources survey, 65% of those polled expressed support for UK investment in peacebuilding around the world. They were backing a British success story that, with the right support, has the potential for more success still.

Secondly, conflict resolution is not some wishy-washy nice-to-have. Here I go perhaps a little further than the noble Lord, Lord McConnell: it is an essential ingredient of our hard power. Conflict, weak governance and institutional collapse can create opportunities for terrorist recruitment, regeneration and expansion, and can provide hostile actors with opportunities to undermine UK interests. Integrating early warning, intelligence, local partnerships and institutional resilience into security planning enables us to anticipate threats and head them off. If our counterterrorism or containment strategy begins only when a threat becomes operational, we have already surrendered the advantage. Enhanced military power is certainly necessary, as the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, said—a year on the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme has left me in no doubt about that—but it can be strategically effective only when accompanied by work at every level to develop relationships, forge compromises, make agreements and see that they are implemented.

Thirdly, money spent in this field offers remarkable value. Public investment in civilian peacebuilding, conflict prevention and mediation is minuscule as a proportion of overseas development aid, and barely noticeable by comparison with defence spending. The annual budget of Inter Mediate would barely stretch to the purchase of a single fixed-wing attack drone or a Patriot missile. If we are serious about boosting our security, our self-reliance and our ability to respond to and shape international events, planning for a serious investment in mediation and peacebuilding needs to be a long-term priority, both in our world-class capacities here at home and in local partners who are essential for reach and for delivery. This means more than simply increasing budget allocations, although after years of the brutal cuts that have been referred to, that would be a good start. We need funding vehicles that are flexible and responsible, partnerships across government and with peacemaking organisations and, returning to where I started, a political and legal environment that supports the risks necessary to make peace.

12:39

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for securing this timely debate, though I confess I speak with some trepidation given the considerable expertise in this Chamber. But as a refugee who arrived in this country from Iran as a young girl because of political violence and religious persecution, and as someone who has stayed abreast of developments in Iran and across the wider Middle East, this is a subject close to my heart.

I have spoken previously on why I think the joint US-Israel attack on Iran in February was an act of strategic folly, the consequences of which we continue to live with. The prospect of a renewed assault on Iran, soon after the mid-term elections in America and the recent elections in Israel, fills me with dread and illustrates all too well that our collective ability to mediate and prevent conflict is diminishing.

Although our assessments of the 1945 global order as broken, bruised or in the process of being bolstered may diverge, surely those who care about human flourishing and the conditions that support it cannot be content with the current era of disorder and unpeace. From a faith perspective, I certainly find this state of affairs deeply troubling. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 33, that God is not a God of disorder, tumult or dissension but of peace, order, harmony and shalom.

Some will argue that, if you want peace, you must prepare for war. That logic is evident in last year’s strategic defence review and in subsequent conversations about how we fund Britain’s military commitments. I do not deny the utility of military deterrence, and I am immensely grateful and indebted to our Armed Forces, who risk danger to protect us. At the same time, I fear that the practice of some countries in recent years suggests we are now moving towards a new formulation altogether—namely, that if you want peace, you must first wage war.

That is a dangerous path to tread. It invites a new global arms race, renewed wars of conquest, shrinking trade and prosperity, and the collapse of the co-operation needed to confront shared global threats. It is a dystopian path that threatens our God-given human dignity and the very integrity of God’s creation. I worry that the preparation for war and the act of war itself become our principal ways of imagining the road to peace. We need instead, as the Lutheran archbishop of Estonia has suggested, to take an alternative pathway—namely, if you want peace, prepare for peace and invest in the instruments necessary to uphold it.

The 2025 strategic defence review was necessary, but where is the strategic peacebuilding review to complement it? At a time of heightened insecurity, we need a focused assessment of whether the UK has the policies, institutions, capabilities and partnerships needed to prevent violent conflict and strengthen the conditions for sustainable peace. At a time when considerable attention is rightly being given to defence, deterrence and national resilience, we also need to examine the other side of the security equation: how Britain prevents conflict, addresses the conditions in which violence and instability develop, and strengthens social cohesion and supports peace before, during and after crises. A strategic peacekeeping review could bring together the domestic and international dimensions of peacebuilding and consider the contribution of government, civil society, faith communities, business and international partners.

None of this is to belittle steps that have been taken in recent years. The creation of a 16-person peace process and mediation team at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is a welcome step, but how might this capability be strengthened and embedded across government, rather than remaining primarily as an FCDO-led operational function? Rather than undertaking such a strategic peace review and investing in peacebuilding mechanisms, we seem intent on financing our rearmament by salami-slicing the development budget and, in so doing, diminishing our ability to tackle the drivers of conflict in many parts of the world. This is a false economy and feels self-defeating. Instead, we should invest in peacebuilding, with fresh funding and a more joined-up national conversation than we have had to date.

This is an agenda that the Church takes seriously. The commitment to peacebuilding is part of our very DNA. We are willing to work together with government and others in creating the conditions in which war and conflict no longer feel like the logical choice or the inevitable outcome. Only last year, the Church of England Pensions Board established the Global Centre for Peacebuilding and Business to respond to the growing global demand for minerals and energy; the expansion of extractive industries into fragile and conflict-affected contexts; the risks that flow from this; and the extraordinary presence and reach of the Church in many of those places.

In South Sudan, a country where, for ordinary people, the situation is getting worse and nothing seems to be getting through to the political inner circle, the Church continues to be the most trusted and far-reaching national institution, engaged in peacebuilding, humanitarian responses, education and healthcare. This role is replicated in other fragile and conflict-ridden countries and underscores the Church’s commitment to being a force for reconciliation and peace.

All this is by way of saying that, in today’s age of disorder, peacebuilding should be understood not merely as a humanitarian endeavour but as a strategic imperative to national security, economic resilience and long-term stability. In a world increasingly focused on preparing for conflict, it is important that we continue making the case for peace and peacebuilding with all due seriousness. Committing to a strategic peace review, to sit alongside the strategic defence review, would be an important but long-overdue step in this direction.

12:47

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, who brings unique experience to this conversation. I point her in the direction of the emerging markets and developing economies taskforce that the Church of England pension trustees are participating in. If successful, that project will achieve and deliver investment at a far greater scale than any development assistance from any country ever could and will unlock the real gains that are needed in developing countries, which will see more stability. That relates directly to the topic of today’s debate.

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord McConnell for securing this debate. Occasions such as these often allow this Chamber to be at its best. So far, the contributions this afternoon have proved that to be the case.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to Inter-Mediate. I thank him for the work that he has led with it alongside Jonathan Powell. They have done tremendous work, almost all of it invisible by necessity. I have had some involvement with some of its work at various points along the way, and I have had some amazing advice from Jonathan about the necessity of patience, discretion and building trust. In today’s world of what is too often reactive diplomacy, where everything needs to be said publicly and responded to instantly, the work that Inter-Mediate does just proves what can be achieved by taking a slightly different approach.

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending an event here to mark 10 years since the signing of the peace agreement in Colombia. Former President Santos spoke about the painstaking work, the political risk, the essential role of the international community, and the commitment that is needed to this day to protect and secure that agreement.

When asked how the UK had helped, former President Santos said, “The most significant change happened when we instructed the Colombian armed forces to stop killing the FARC”. President Santos explained that, when the army began to capture fighters to demobilise and reintegrate them into society, the armed forces were no longer seen as devils by the fighters. He said that real progress was achieved when the enemy became viewed as people, not to be destroyed but rather to be defeated, because you need them to negotiate with in order to bring about a stable peace.

There are obviously lessons that can be learned from the Colombian experience, just as there are from other fragile and all-too-rare lasting peace agreements, such as the Good Friday agreement and Dayton, which are incredibly fragile and which we must protect at every opportunity. But there is a warning about trying to learn lessons and apply them directly in different contexts. It is tempting to search for a template—a set of principles to deploy that will guarantee success in other contexts—but, as we all know, each conflict is unique. The motivations, relationships, history and political space, the involvement of neighbouring states, which we see more and more, the approach of more distant but powerful nations, the presence of hard power, the deployment of technology and the character of the protagonists are all different.

Instead of the hard work of innovation—coming up with creative new approaches, combining our defence, diplomacy and development work, working alongside the multilateral development banks and multilateral systems—too often I see the international community’s response is to look to the tools that it used last time to ask itself which of those it ought to deploy. This is fine, important and can lead to some success—UN resolutions, increasingly outraged statements of condemnation, which I have given myself, sanctions, demands for accountability, side meetings and symbolism. These are all important and have their place, but issues and places are too often picked up and put down by the multilateral system and by nations. Look at Haiti, and even Sudan. There are so many examples. Who is holding it close? Who is really taking responsibility for what is happening and saying, “We’re the penholder: we have the job of making this better, however long it takes”. In an era when countries can trade off their relationships, not just with their neighbours, but with the US, China, Russia and Europe, protagonists can and do ignore the standard toolkit responses.

When agreements work, they are the result of deep understanding and, often, local leadership. This is especially true in Africa, where one year since the fall of El Fasher we continue to see widespread massacres and atrocities. While high-intensity wars in Ukraine and Gaza generate so much news, attention and, it is true, a massive share of the casualties, it is Sudan and, indeed, Africa as a whole that is the deadliest continent for deliberate non-combat violence, directed deliberately and specifically at civilians, with women paying a particularly high price. We see non-state armed groups, private armies, Russian mercenaries, extremist terrorist groups, weak states and communities desperately trying to survive despite it all.

This debate is about what the UK can and should do. If the UK and our partners want to help, as I believe we do, we must supplement the statement making with statecraft. We, by which I mean the international community, need less reliance on shaky deals between warlords and more time given to building long-term, resilient, civilian relationships that form the foundation of any lasting peace. We saw Kagame and Tshisekedi summoned by the White House to sign a deal. That did not bring about peace to eastern DRC, which is now ravaged by Ebola and lacks the community trust or state apparatus to do what is needed.

Last night, when I asked President Santos what his experience told him would help in Sudan, he gave an answer that I agree with completely. He said that the UK should give its time and attention to the supporters of the warring parties in neighbouring countries and further afield and that we should work hard to support civil society and local civilian leadership. It is low-key, unglamorous and time-consuming, but it is vital. Trade, transactional approaches and saying that we will bestow or withdraw development assistance or other such gestures will always fail. They have always failed. There is no example of where that approach, so often advocated for, has succeeded.

The UK, as others have said, has credibility in building and sustaining peace alongside others, notably Qatar and Norway. We must use this well and do so urgently, especially in places where the ordinariness of earning a living, raising your children and seeing out your days in peace is far too often denied. It should never ever be taken for granted.

12:56

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I join in the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, not just on his luck in the ballot but also on his continuing zeal and determination in trying to focus our minds on these vastly important, indeed giant, world issues. Mediation, conflict prevention, peacebuilding and our role in it all are very big issues indeed, covering enormous areas. At least half our home Troubles, which sometimes seem just local matters, are in fact issues that, in a world in which what the Chancellor calls “global economic storms” are coming along, have their roots in precisely the areas that we are discussing today. They require strong and respected international and multilateral institutions to handle and calm them down.

Probably most important of all in the calming down process that is so badly needed are the multilateral agencies and respected fora, which are where our global decisions can be reached and the frameworks, design and rules must be established. Trusted and respected multilateral bodies must be rebuilt, as they were in 1945. People forget that, in 1945, after the rubble of the Second World War, we created from nothing—Americans and British in the lead, but many others as well—an entirely new structure of international co-operation. Yet all those post-war institutions, which served us quite well for decades in the 20th century, are now in deep trouble. They are the rule-makers, or are meant to be, and the referees, but they must have respect and some trust if their writ is to run.

Obviously, we need a new Bretton Woods to shape the financial regulations of an entirely different world from that of 80 years ago. We plainly need new trade rules in a far more complicated trade and investment world of supply chains. We need entirely new maritime controls, both subsea and surface. We need overhauled international courts, new insurance systems and so on and so forth. Where are the visionaries today? Where are the equivalents of Truman, Marshall, Maynard Keynes and Dexter White, for instance—although I am told that he had other interests as well. They were supported by a dazzling cast of American and British economists, officials and financiers.

National plans and solutions we have two a penny—they are coming out all the time—but missing is the other half of the story: the global network and new international organisations that are the shield under which our own reforms become possible and relevant. Where are the new levels of co-operation that we need to assume some control over artificial intelligence and superintelligent machines that are beginning to think for themselves and have their own agenda?

All this is ignored or barely reported or discussed in the media or in public policy. The spirit of 1945 and those visionaries is plainly needed all over again, but in an even more ambitious form. Without that, we can carry on attacking one another and attacking the nearest targets as well, but we remain the playthings of past economic fantasy theories, swept along in a rudderless craft in a world without rules, referees or restraints. Amid many uncertainties, the one thing that can be said with absolute certainty is that such a world, without the handrails of accepted standards, is fatal to the prospects of a nation such as Great Britain.

To those who shake their heads and say that the required degree of co-operation is politically impossible today, the answer is not so. Political parties may be harder than ever to keep together, but authors such as the brilliant Adrian Wooldridge, whose book I strongly recommend and who writes about centrists in all parties needing to come together, are pointing a way to a new kind of revolution. The middle ground may sound a quagmire to party warriors from the old ideological wars, but the new common ground, which is a very different thing, undoubtedly lies ahead. That is where the real revolution is, and where those with real foresight should be concentrating their views.

This is the political powerplay and style of co-operation in the internet age and beyond. It avoids the traumas of party “betrayal”, which the press loves to play up, but unites the search for common ground. The barrier, of course, is the old left-right battle that grew out of Marxism-Leninism versus laissez-faire capitalism and led to unstable ideological stalemate and worse.

The moderating instincts of balanced international liberalism ought to be the ones driving global financial stability and restoring free trade, which Trumpism has thrown into turmoil. They ought also to be the ones that open the gates to closer co-operation, rather than a standoff between private funding and public need in almost every sphere of public policy.

I end with one final observation: with the binding force of the English language still dominating global trade and holding together a still growing Commonwealth, the largest network in the world and the largest network in history, it may be that a new vehicle of thought, action and hope is about to be born. Let us wait and see.

13:03

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [R]]

My Lords, I have spent 47 years in Westminster. I have supported conflicts worldwide, most notably in the Middle East and eastern Europe, but some recent conflicts have caused me to reflect and have cost me dearly. Friendships have been fractured. My view that we have sometimes questionably intervened in matters overseas has been unpopular. Today’s debate is about global mediation and conflict prevention, and I shall concentrate my remarks on Ukraine and Russia.

In 1992, as a Labour shadow Agriculture Minister, I visited Moscow to investigate our beef export trade. That eye-opening visit gave me an early opportunity post Gorbachev—Yeltsin was president—to look at developments in Russia. I visited the Duma, NGOs and institutions. The Russian economy was in free fall. Its proud people, the spirit of Stalingrad, were being humiliated before the civilised world. Its administration was often riddled with corruption, with many former Soviet apparatchiks openly exploiting the system to survive, their actions often underpinned by reckless acts of officials who sanctioned violence.

I particularly recall the poverty. I witnessed a respectable, well-clad woman in effect begging over a small stall in the street with her meagre offerings—a bunch of vegetables, a tin or two and some vodka—to raise money to survive on little pension. She was one among many whom I witnessed. The currency was in free fall. My hotel rate was $150 for foreigners; it was $5 for locals. Black marketeers were touring the hotels dealing in currency. Russia was in a state of total humiliation and collapse, and the political response was suspicion of the West.

Of course, it was totally unwarranted, a complete misunderstanding, the truth being that across our political divide there was a hope that their suffering would end and a new Russia committed to democratic values would surface and enter the world of advanced, civilised nations. It was not to be, as within two years of this period of humiliation, Russia signed the 1994 Budapest memorandum. It was a treaty born in duress that was prayed in aid by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, last week. That memorandum was signed by Russia at its lowest ebb. Russia, in humiliation, never accepted that treaty. It arguably led to the election of Putin in 1998, a former spook with visions of rebuilding Russia which appealed to its humiliated peoples.

That brings me to the Putin years. I well recall that day in October 2001 when my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, as NATO Secretary-General, met Vladimir Putin—I think it was in Vienna. My noble friend had proposed that a working group be established to promote a NATO-Russian relationship—all very welcome—but it was to be completely undermined by President Bush’s calls in the same year for NATO expansion into eastern Europe. Those Bush interventions were critical, as they heralded an end to détente and the revival of a militant Russia, where they were seen as acts of hostility. Russia had relied on the maintenance of a string of non-nuclear, non-NATO barrier states stretching from Finland to Georgia. Ever suspicious of the West, it followed up with its desperate but ill-considered attempt to take over Ukraine, and Zelensky was elected on the backlash.

It was about this time that I started following events in Russia more closely, which I do to this day. Talk of détente had gone, and the Robertson/Putin agenda was dead. We now had an inflexible Russia extending political control, grabbing territory—the Crimea—and manipulating populations in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, provoking a fearsome and brutal response from the Azov Brigade with its history of support for Germany in the Second World War, thus the Russian references to the Nazis. When historians reflect on developments in Ukraine during its darkest periods, let us not underestimate the significance of those battalions in Russia’s decision to use them as foil in justification for their invasion of Ukraine.

For me, the issue is how we should respond. We now face a future where a Russian leadership, paranoid and challenged, stands in isolation. I fear for the future of mankind in this period of conflict. A rogue operator in Russia’s nuclear military establishment could act in isolation. I well recall with concern the actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the rebel commander of the Wagner brigade, a former confidant of Putin, who died in suspicious circumstances. Putin himself saw the dangers, and it is in that light that the drift into war where Zelensky controls the agenda worries me.

So now how should we proceed? A proud Russia is cornered, and I suspect it seeks a settlement without humiliation. We need an agenda that avoids humiliation for all concerned. We need to settle this dispute. I have called repeatedly for the UK Government to seize the initiative and take on the settlement agenda. In my most recent interventions, I have called for the establishment of protectorate status in eastern Ukraine, for which there are well-established precedents—a settlement to include much of Donetsk and Luhansk, underpinned by guarantees from the major powers, to include the United States, Europe and Russia. I still believe that Russia’s future lies with the West and that Putin, for all his misunderstanding, can be returned to rational discussion. It is the British who should take the lead, but it is an agenda requiring courage, understanding, wise counsel and risk, and an agenda that listens to those of us who take a different view without the name-calling.

13:10

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I begin my remarks with a simple reflection: the true test of diplomacy now is not how eloquently we respond to conflict but how effectively we prevent it. I draw Members’ attention to my registered interests with the World Humanitarian Forum and the International Communities Organisation, and as a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee. The issue of conflict prevention is very close to my heart. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for tabling this debate. Over many years as a Minister, I saw his passionate advocacy for both conflict resolution and humanitarian affairs.

Today, as we confront a world marked by more than 65 conflicts, depending on how you define a conflict or a war, deepening geopolitical divisions and immense humanitarian suffering, the responsibility on all of us, and the United Kingdom in particular, has never been greater. Behind every statistic of a life lost—and we heard harrowing statistics from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell—there is a human story: a family displaced, a child deprived of education, a woman subjected to violence, or a community whose hopes for a peaceful future have been shattered.

Having served in government, represented the UK internationally, and worked extensively through the United Nations, I have seen both the potential and success of diplomacy but also, tragically, the consequences that come when you act too late. The UK was part of the conflict resolution between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Perhaps we do not get the credit we deserve. I remember shuttling between Foreign Ministers. But that was the true sense of British diplomacy: discreet and understated. I have learned that peace is not achieved through declarations alone. It requires, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, sustained political engagement, conversations, crucial and trusted partnerships, and, above all, the courage to keep working when progress seems elusive. Prevention, mediation and peacebuilding are not separate stages of our international responsibility; they are interconnected parts of the same endeavour.

The United Nations, a clear focus of our debate, was founded on the determination that future generations should be spared the devastation of war. In my view, millions have been failed in this regard. The founding vision remains as relevant today as it was in 1945. The UN, as I saw myself, brings together the international community, provides a framework for collective security, supports peacekeeping, facilitates mediation, and gives a voice to nations that might otherwise be unheard. Yet we must be candid: the UN’s effectiveness in recent years has been diminishing or indeed absent from the negotiating table. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and others have said, we have seen other countries stepping forward—Qatar in the Middle East and beyond—and regional players playing their part to ensure that conflicts can come to an end.

When divisions within the Security Council prevent meaningful action, as I saw myself, the credibility of the international system suffers. Yet my own experience of multilateral diplomacy also reinforced a fundamental lesson. International institutions, whether we talk of the UN, the ICJ or the ICC, are as effective only as the political will that sustains them. We need a more responsible, dynamic and agile United Nations but, importantly, with the right people who can act as advocates. Reform matters, but so does the willingness of member states to use the instruments that already exist.

One of the most important lessons of diplomacy is that conflicts rarely emerge without warning. Political exclusion, discrimination and the erosion of human rights, economic insecurity and the deliberate targeting of communities are often the basis. Yet too often, as a collective, we wait too long. We wait until violence has erupted before mobilising the full weight of international diplomacy. This must fundamentally change. Prevention requires investment in early-warning systems, strong institutions, inclusive governance, and the protection of fundamental freedoms. It also requires listening to communities and faith leaders, as the right reverend Prelate reminded us. I saw directly the importance of sustained relationships and direct engagement with international partners. In diplomacy, trust built before a crisis is essential.

I have a plea that applies to my party as well as the current Government. We must stop the revolving door when it comes to ministerial change on the global stage. Relationships matter and we must invest in those relationships. Without that, the UK loses credibility. We have excellent diplomatic networks and international relationships. We have the experience in this House as well. I say to the Minister: leverage those experiences. We have names who have built security and trust. We need to ensure that we get the optimum benefit for the world as a whole. The most successful act of conflict prevention may be one that the world never notices, precisely because that conflict never happens. Those who have been involved with this have seen it.

My noble friend Lord Redwood also mentioned the importance of diplomacy, but it needs the strength of all our assets, including defence. So I ask the Minister: as the United Kingdom previously has operated, and continues to operate, on issues such as Operation Prosperity Guardian, what is the current support we are extending to ensure that places such as the Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea continue to be secure, despite the Houthis’ attacks? Mediation also means that we keep the door open. It requires patience and political judgment. When we believe in peace, we must be prepared to do the hard work of pursuing it.

Let me emphasise an important distinction. Engagement does not mean endorsement, and dialogue does not mean abandoning principle, especially when it comes to dealing with conflicts such as Ukraine and Russia. This is where the UK and its regional partners can make a real difference, co-ordinating diplomatic pressure and ensuring that negotiations are accompanied by a realistic pathway to peace. We must also resist the temptation to measure success solely by whether the parties all sat around a table. It is far more than that. The real measure is whether the process produced meaningful progress, peace, and security. A ceasefire can stop the immediate violence. Only sustained political engagement can help prevent its return. Peacebuilding begins long before a peace agreement is signed, and we must emphasise the importance of women peacekeepers. The UK led on the issue of conflict mediators, creating the very networks of women mediators. Yet, with the one exception that the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, pointed out, we have not seen women mediators involved in the current live conflicts that we witness.

I turn to a subject which was very close to my heart. I pay tribute to my noble friends Lord Hague and Lady Helic on the issue of preventing sexual violence in conflict. I spent seven years on that. In terms of listening to voices, of effecting global change, we listened to survivors, not after the event, but we put them at the heart of our strategy planning. I hope the Minister can assure me that we will continue to stand by UK leadership, and I would welcome an update on the international alliance that was created in this respect.

To conclude, the UK’s responsibility is immense. First, I do not subscribe to the view that we are a middle power. We are slightly more enhanced than that. We are not China or the United States, but we are the United Kingdom. We have incredible diplomatic networks, as has been mentioned, and we need to invest in those to sustain our principled diplomats.

Secondly, we need to practise principled, consistent engagement and maintain channels of communication. We must be the champions. It is not woke to stand up for women in mediation; it is simply the right thing to do. We must support peace beyond the negotiating table and build effective coalitions. But, above all, we must maintain consistency between our words and our actions.

Let me conclude with a reflection drawn from my own experience on the international stage. Diplomacy can be frustrating: I served five Prime Ministers and six Foreign Secretaries, so I know that it starts at home. Yet history reminds us that conflicts once considered intractable have found pathways towards resolution when political leadership, international engagement and public determination have come together. We must never confuse the difficulty of achieving peace with the impossibility of achieving it. The UN has a vital role, but it must be revitalised. Let us therefore move from reacting to crises towards preventing them and from managing temporary pauses to political settlements. Let our legacy be measured not simply by the conflicts we helped to resolve but those we helped to prevent, the lives we helped to protect and the generations who were able to grow up in peace.

13:21

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I begin by joining the chorus of thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, for bringing us this debate and introducing it so clearly. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who, as we have just heard, has maintained an acute focus on gender issues in conflict; I echo his comments by saying that I hope we will continue to see this from our current Ministers. I also note that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, did a brilliant job in the recent Lord Speaker’s Lecture with Dr Fiona Hill. For those who missed it, it is on YouTube and I can strongly recommend it.

I am going to focus on three issues. The largest and first is atrocity prevention, which is of course absolutely crucial to maintaining and restoring peace. I have raised this issue previously in your Lordships’ House and it is an acutely urgent one. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, referred to the first anniversary of the El Fasher massacre this week. I was at the commemoration in your Lordships’ House of that massacre, an indescribably awful event. We heard there from a woman who described herself as a child of El Fasher; she lost 40 people there. Of course, one of the realities of such massacres today is that she was on the phone to one of the people killed at El Fasher—their children were killed as well—just hours before El Fasher fell. If we think about the kind of experience that people are going through, we must not forget that. She made the plea, so often heard and so often not delivered: “Never again”.

There is a great deal of academic work being done on atrocity prevention, which is worth looking at. The answer to the simple question of why leaders choose to engage in mass atrocities is that they do it because the rewards seem greater than the costs. They end mass atrocities either because they have achieved what they saw as their goal or because the balance of risks and costs has changed. That really is where the international community could and should be coming in.

What we have seen, sadly, is that three of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have increasingly been challenging, to varying degrees, the post-war legal order and seeking to weaken the institutions which should be acting to increase the costs of committing atrocities. For the middle powers—Canada, Brazil, Japan and the UK—that means we have an even larger responsibility to act. As the right reverend Prelate set out, we have a huge moral responsibility, but there is also the practical outcome of why it is in our own interests to take action. Atrocity crimes drive human displacement and destabilise entire regions; many would point to the fact that they disrupt markets and demand costly responses. I note that the Institute for Economics & Peace’s Global Peace Index estimates that such violence cost $2.8 trillion in 2025, equivalent to 18.5% of global GDP.

In November last year, I put a Written Question to the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, about the staffing level of the mass atrocity prevention hub in the FCDO that was created in 2022. As the noble Baroness told me, it had been integrated into the conflict and atrocity prevention department in 2024. I was asking for numbers in that Written Question and did not get them, so these are direct questions to the Minister and I will understand if he needs to write to me. How many people are now working in that conflict and atrocity prevention department? How does that compare with the number of people working in the department 12 months ago and where do the Government expect the staffing in that department to be in 12 months’ time?

I ask that in the context of an important report that came out earlier this month from the Standing Group on Atrocity Crimes, an independent but very respected group which published The Atrocity Crimes Review: a Comprehensive UK Strategy for Atrocity Prediction, Prevention and Response. The review concludes that

“the UK’s approach … remains fragmented and reactive … there is no coherent framework to ensure … early warnings of atrocity crimes”

and there is now a great deal of academic literature and professional understanding of how we can see these crimes approaching. It says that this is not being “translated into timely action” and that there is

“no comprehensive national strategy, no dedicated ministerial lead, and no clearly identified budget”,

as we have seen from the structural changes I just referred to.

The review stresses that it is talking about successive Governments—it is not picking on any Government in particular—and warns that this is directly affecting the UK’s national security and economic interests. It also has impacts on migration pressures, as well as in the overall application and exercise of the international rule of law. Acting before the atrocity happens not only saves enormous human costs; it saves enormous economic costs. The review recommends:

“A dedicated cross-government atrocity prevention strategy”


with clear funding and parliamentary reporting;

“An independent statutory expert body to assess atrocity risks and advise Government and Parliament”;


and a “named ministerial lead” for these issues, with “stronger mechanisms” to get action. My question to the Minister is: will the Government be looking seriously at this review and responding to it?

I come briefly to two further points, which both relate to the UK’s position in the world. If we are to take action, be regarded as a leader and be effective in that action, when we make commitments to the global community, to scientific researchers and citizens, we need to ensure that we can meet them. I note it has recently emerged that HMS “Protector” will not be deploying to the Antarctic for the 2026-27 season, which will leave the UK without an ice patrol vessel in the South Atlantic for the second year in a row. We last had a vessel, which was the HMS “Protector”, in the 2024-25 season.

That vessel could not sail from Teesside to Devonport this month. Reports suggest that it has suffered a catastrophic double engine failure. This vessel was taken on in 2011 as a short-term replacement for HMS “Endurance”, which had been crippled by flooding in 2008. The vessel carries out surveys and inspections under the Antarctic treaty and it supports the British Antarctic Survey, as well as taking on more obvious defence responsibilities. Can the Minister reassure me that, by whatever means necessary, we will be meeting our responsibilities to the Antarctic treaty and supporting the British Antarctic Survey?

I come finally to a very large subject which I can cover only quickly. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, spoke, absolutely rightly, about how our diplomats and third-sector organisations have a very good international reputation, but we are seeing worldviews shifting as geopolitics shift. I note that the UN adopted a resolution in March 2026 declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity, and of course the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, has launched a new manifesto from Caribbean leaders asserting their moral, ethical and legal case for reparations.

As noted in a 2024 report by the UCL Policy Lab and Hertford College, Oxford, former colonies are making increasingly vocal demands around the need for reparations for colonialism and compensation for the loss and damage arising from historical industrial emissions. I must cross-reference the Rosebank debate we had earlier: that decision will impact on our international standing in the world, as well as all the other impacts.

Other noble Lords have already referred to some very unwise military interventionism and adventurism in which we have engaged with the US in recent decades. Not being Airstrip One is something that we must think about very hard in terms of our international relations and how we will be treated by the rest of the world. The UK needs to be an independent actor, standing up for human rights and the rule of law. If we are not in that position then we will not be as effective as we could and should be.

13:31

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, a week ago I took part in a debate here on the desirability or otherwise of a written constitution. I was put on the speakers’ list to follow a slew of noble and learned Lords whose knowledge, experience and fingertip ability to bring out the right quotation and citation was extraordinary and belittling. This week, I am put on the speakers’ list to follow diplomats, politicians and others who have run the world or been close to people who have run the world. Here I stand now, seeking to make as much sense and legitimacy for my being here as I tried to make last week. The feature in common for both debates is the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. I am now so used to the noble Lord that his presence is comforting; last week, it was less so.

I want to move from macro to micro, and those who know me will not need much help to understand that I wish to speak about a country that is very dear to me, namely Haiti. I lived there for 10 years and did all kinds of things, from microfinance to organising co-operatives, planting trees, literacy and working with Haitian people in the fields and the council chambers, sometimes in the midst of alarmingly hostile situations. I come from that experience and it allows me to declare, as a possible conflict of interest, my co-chairing of the Haiti APPG. I was also ordained as a Methodist minister in Haiti. Our two sons were born there in a local hospital with Haitian medical care, so nobody could ever accuse me of being impartial as I share my remarks with the House today.

Three items concerning Haiti have come to my attention in the few days since I put down my name to speak. First was the news that the United Nations has agreed to extend its remit to maintain a Gang Suppression Force in Haiti for a further six months. Secondly, one of the countries providing troops to that force is Sri Lanka. Some 1,500 of its soldiers have been present in Haiti since June. Thirdly, there was a long article in the Spectator by a man called Bruce Gilley under the headline

“It’s time to colonise Haiti”.


I found it provocative, ill informed and malicious. That is not untypical of the approaches to encapsulate or describe what is happening in Haiti.

Despite the longer time than usual which is now allotted, time limits me to just two of those items. Between 2004 and 2007, at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers sexually exploited and abused Haitian children, boys and girls, some as young as eight, anally and orally. This was revealed by an internal United Nations report; it is excoriating to read. None of these peacekeepers was imprisoned for sexual assault or misconduct or brought to justice. There is no evidence of any credible, transparent or independent vetting process for troops constituting the present deployment from Sri Lanka. The complete absence of such measures is causing great concern to members of the Sri Lanka Campaign with whom I have been in conversation. Yet 1,500 Sri Lankan soldiers are on Haitian soil again. It is doubtful that many lessons have been learned from the previous dreadful experience.

Such happenings seem to be a regular occurrence in Haiti. Let us remind ourselves that the country suffered an enormous earthquake in January 2010. Over a quarter of a million people died—more than twice the total number of people killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. The world made a show of rallying round and the United Nations strengthened what it called a “stabilisation force” to keep order on the streets, but abusive events seemed to flourish in the chaos of those times. Uruguay was forced to recall five of its peacekeepers from Haiti in 2011 amid allegations that, while wearing their country’s uniform, they were involved in the sexual assault of a local young man. Apart from that recall—even though there is much informal sharing of information that cannot be ascertained—no further investigation was mounted.

In the same year, an internal investigation conducted by Oxfam revealed that some aid workers, including the charity’s Haiti director, used local women. They were shamefully described as “prostitutes” as if they bore some of the blame for what was happening. All they had post-earthquake was their bodies; nothing else could earn them a penny or two. That they took part, therefore, in what were called “orgies” among the development workers under the aegis of Oxfam was a horrid thing. Amid widespread allegations of a cover-up, details of that 2011 event did not become public until 2018.

Peacekeepers from Nepal were accused of being responsible for a cholera outbreak, subsequently proved to the satisfaction of the investigation, which has killed as many as 10,000 in Haiti—a country that had never known cholera before. Compare the blanket of silence that has fallen on this experience with the publicity given to the incidence of Ebola in Sierra Leone at roughly the same time, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in more recent times.

Then there is Donald Trump, bless him; I paused for effect there but I did not seem to get it. In the 2024 election he and, please note, his Vice-President alleged that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating their neighbours’ pets. There were no credible reports, police records or substantiated evidence of pets being stolen, harmed or eaten by Haitian immigrants.

The grotesque Mr Trump repeatedly referred to Haiti as a “shithole” country, an adjective which, if he continues on his present course, might become useful to us all in our attempts to describe his country. He has begun the process of repatriating 300,000 Haitians to the land of their birth, where 10 million are already subjected to poverty of an order almost impossible to understand; it is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

I call these observations that I put together for this talk a charge list. The United Kingdom is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The United Nations has signally failed to engage with the needs of Haiti. The hundreds of millions of dollars it has poured into Haiti for various iterations of peacekeeping, stabilisation or gang suppression forces represents a downright waste of money of the first order. Can our representative in New York show an interest in these matters and see how a fraction of what has been lost and wasted there could have done immense good in the country I am referring to? With that, I rest my charge.

13:40

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for his permanent passion and pursuit of these issues. We know that he digs away when many of us would rather sleep, and we are grateful to him for this debate. I also thank my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port for his heartfelt and painful speech—many aspects of it were difficult to hear but many of our private conversations have expressed the horrors that he has described well today. The whole House owes the noble Lord respect, given that he has lived and served in Haiti, and continues to advocate for it. Thank you.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, for referring to President Santos. I will be with him in Cape Town next Friday. President Santos will be delivering the 24th Nelson Mandela lecture, in which he will pose the important question, “When is silence complicity”? He will ask us to consider what has happened to our voices as nations and our voices as leaders. He is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has worked strenuously to bring opposing forces together. In other meetings I have had with him around the One Young World Summit—it takes place in Cape Town next week and I am there as a trustee—he has been strident, as also the leader of the elders, that the voice is vital to the piercing power of the impact we seek to find.

One of the other elders, Desmond Tutu, said that if we are neutral in situations of injustice, we have chosen the side of the oppressor. That is a painful thing to hear because I suspect that many of us, both in the previous Government, including the long-serving and honourable Ministers who saw out many who found the exit, and in this current Government, look at our governmental processes and wonder where is the voice? To what extent are we silent in the face of evil events? Albert Einstein reminded us that the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. Will the Minister reflect on the extent to which we are we watching but not commenting? Are we seeing but not speaking? Are we afraid to express our voice in public? Martin Luther King Jr reminded us that

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends”.


I was thinking about the last time there was a governmental conference on one of the most difficult and intractable wars currently under way, which is in Sudan—probably the most vile of all the current wars. We must give credit to the former Foreign Secretary David Lammy for holding a conference to address those concerns, but subsequent Foreign Secretaries, certainly to my awareness, have not done so. The point ably made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, was that we keep swapping around Foreign Secretaries, Defence Secretaries and Ministers who are meant to carry memory, and the memory should help us to continue mature conversation and enable us to make better decisions. If we constantly refuse to hear because the voices have gone silent, we are complicit. We must ask ourselves why. To what extent has Britain lost its backbone?

Last night, I pointed out to the students that I have the joy of teaching at an American business school—I teach online, as I could not have got from here to there for this debate—an article that appeared in a local South Carolina newspaper by the former executive director of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, on 20 October. He is a great personal friend, and I was pleased that the university I represent gave him the Stephen R. Covey leadership award three years ago for his life of principles.

In this article, David Beasley, who was also a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his exceptional work in leading the World Food Programme, takes the question to the very heart of what I want to think about. The title is:

“Before America can be great, she must be good”.


He is currently running a campaign called “Make America Good Again”. That is not the business of this House, or the House down the Corridor, but it is a very important point.

I listened intently to yesterday’s—may I say, tinkering—Budget. Some may have loved every bit of it, but I went through the Budget book this morning and looked up what is said about foreign affairs, defence and conflict resolution—helped by AI a little bit, I must say, especially for “conflict resolution”. There was nothing. A lot is said, quite rightly, about £10 billion for Ukraine and the acquiring of weapons and structural systems, but not about conflict resolution. Maybe we have given that up. Buried away somewhere in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office there is a group of civil servants beavering away, advising Ministers, but we do not know how many and we do not know what they are saying.

We do not seem to express a strident voice that really matters on the global stage on these issues. I am going to say something dangerous: the United States President has invited the Russian President to attend the G20, which will take place in the United States. I hope every grown-up European politician, and our own Prime Minister, will take that as an opportunity for dialogue—not to run away and simply not be seen but to have communication, to shake hands and to be present. That is an easy response. Trust between opposing powers is built only when we meet.

I also spoke to my students last night about the work of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. Everyone in this House remembers 1977 and 1978 because we were all around and very old at that stage.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

Oh!

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

Okay, maybe not—let us allow youth to speak. We all remember what it took for President Carter to sit for 23 days with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat at Camp David, to discover a peace between Egypt and Israel that has held to this day. The same can be said of Northern Ireland and South Africa: whether we like it or not, dialogue is essential, even with opposing people, powers and those of a vile disposition, as we see it.

I will meet President Santos next week for the third time. I have been in Colombia three times and the last time I was there I went to Medellín, the town in which Pablo Escobar managed to conduct his vile campaigns of police and army corruption and destruction. I witnessed 20 women telling stories about the killing of their husbands and sons. Then I witnessed 20 of Escobar’s men step forward to apologise. The necessity of facing what we do not want to hear, and dealing with others because we must, is what I call “heart power”. We say a lot about soft power and hard power, but we need heart power to solve conflicts and bring people together. That requires guts, and I hope the Minister has them.

13:51

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Hastings. He is the last of those who could be accused of remaining silent in the face of injustice. He has been at the forefront of so many cases and I agree very much with what he said, including his words about Dave Beasley, with whom I had the privilege of working, when I was Minister of International Development, at the World Food Programme. He did immense work there.

I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for initiating this debate. No one in this place has done more over the years than him to advance the agenda of stopping wars and saving lives. We owe him a great debt of gratitude for the work that he does not only in this place but, as we heard in his introductory remarks, around the world. I place on record my interest as qualified mediator with the International Mediation Institute and I serve as an officer with the All-Party Group for Sudan and South Sudan.

Peace-seeking and peacemaking are never popular. In the short term, everyone wants to be a Churchill; no one wants to be a Chamberlain. Yet, in 1954, Winston Churchill became so deeply concerned about President Eisenhower’s refusal to talk to his Soviet counterpart amid rising tensions that he went to the White House to tell the President publicly that

“jaw to jaw is better than war”.

Eisenhower listened and agreed to hold talks which temporarily defused the tensions.

Often, we are unable to meet jaw to jaw on our own and we require an intermediary, a trusted mediator or a mediating institution to bridge the gap and facilitate the dialogue. When both sides are shouting, no one is listening. Mediation does not compel us to agree with our enemy, but it does require us to listen to them, and they to us, and for both sides to do so respectfully.

I recall being the most junior of bag-carriers to the Security Minister in the Northern Ireland Office in 1994, when messages were being received about a possible ceasefire. But the experiences of the terrorist atrocities, the lack of trust and a deep suspicion meant that we could not bridge that chasm on our own. It was not until President Clinton sent, as a gift, Senator George Mitchell as an envoy to Northern Ireland later that year that we had someone who would stand in the gap for us and form a bridge for mediation that led to the Good Friday agreement. There was nothing weak about negotiating that agreement—it was done with huge political and personal risks by all those involved—but it saved hundreds, if not thousands, of British lives.

It is so much easier to throw a brick or build a wall than it is to build a bridge, easier to raise a fist in vengeance than it is to extend a hand in forgiveness. That is easy for me to say—I have never lost family members in war or been a victim of violence. Erich Fromm, on the other hand, was a German Jew, one of the greatest psychoanalysts of the last century. He was living in Frankfurt when the Nazis came to power. He narrowly escaped the Holocaust, but members of his family did not. He had every reason to be filled with self-righteous hatred and judgmentalism. But instead, he wrote a small book, The Art of Loving, which I will quote some of here today:

“The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one’s own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard—every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve … The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility”.


In a world where nine men have at their fingertips enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet many times over, our only hope is human reason. But Erich Fromm reminds us that reason is built on objectivity and humility. The capacity to reason is that we see things not as they are but as we are; where we sit determines where we stand. We do not see the whole picture, we may be wrong and our enemy may even have a point. Let me illustrate this: I follow Newcastle United Football Club.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Bates (Con)]

Thank you. As you can tell, I am an optimist. Even my blood group is B positive, and that helps. But when I am at St James’ Park, watching a game from the stands, the minute one of our players just trips over a shoelace in the opposition box, 50,000 fans rise as one to call for a penalty for such an obvious and devious foul. Yet when the opposing player is flattened by big Dan Burn in our box, the crowd rise as one to call it a clear dive that deserves nothing but a yellow card for simulation. But when I watch the game at home on TV, I see multiple different perspectives replayed endlessly in slow motion and from every angle. We have them assessed by a referee and a linesman, and independent commentators, and we see things differently, perhaps more objectively.

The point is that we live in a Westphalian world of sovereign independent states where each state is its own referee. We call events as we see them, but then so does everybody else. We believe we are right, but then so does everybody else. We believe our actions are just, but then so does everybody else. It is a system designed for chaos and conflict. Yet, with our incredible human ingenuity, we have designed mediating institutions to compensate for our human weakness, chiefly the United Nations to act as a bridge between sovereign states and within states to maintain order and over which they can seek to mediate their differences. When we uphold the United Nations, we are upholding international order. When we attack or undermine it, we are destroying the critical infrastructure on which the very future and hope of civilisation depend.

I believe it is no coincidence that today we are seeing armed conflicts at their highest levels since 1946, when at the same time great power rivalries are undermining the United Nations at every turn and cutting its budgets. In international relations, as in life, you get what you pay for. Global military spending last year was $3 trillion, 1,000 times the budget of the UN. The entire peacebuilding budget of the United Nations to respond to 65 active armed conflicts around the world is $124 million, less than the cost of a single modern fighter jet. We could mediate an entire peace process for less than the cost of a single cruise missile.

Moreover, we are blessed in this country with some of the most skilled and respected diplomats in the world. The convening power of London is second to none. We are a soft power superpower, but that superpower is hard power. We have also been the beneficiaries of patient mediation ourselves in Northern Ireland, and that imposes an obligation on us to repay it by mediating for others.

It is also in our own enlightened self-interest to do that. Around three-quarters of those arriving in small boats in this country are from areas of conflict abroad. We are more secure at home when there is peace abroad; we are more prosperous too. Peace is the greatest generator of prosperity humans have ever discovered, and war is the greatest cause of poverty. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor told us yesterday that they are seeking opportunities to invest for growth. My message to them is simple: invest in peace.

14:01

[Lord Rook (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and I thank him for that contribution. We have the privilege of catching the bus home together occasionally, and on Monday we discussed his recent trip to Sudan, which was fascinating, and this upcoming debate, which we were much looking forward to. I do not think either of us have been disappointed; I might disappoint some people now, but up until now, we have not been disappointed. My thanks go to my noble friend Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale for securing this debate, and to other noble Lords for what has been a fascinating and broad-ranging set of contributions.

I point to my register of interests, and the work I do at the Good Faith Partnership, in respect of some of the work I will talk about next. Around the world, faith leaders are often on the front line of peacebuilding. From them, we learn that religious diplomacy can reach the parts that Governments struggle to reach. In my honest opinion, there are some false and lazy assumptions that sometimes prevent us harnessing the power of faith for mediation and conflict resolution. I want to talk about that today.

One false assumption is that the relationships of faith leaders are held largely with other religious people. It is not true in western countries; often, our faith leaders are the most well-connected people across different sectors and the range of society. It is certainly an irrelevant assumption in much of the world, where more than 80% of people say that faith has a role in their own personal identity. I am really grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for highlighting earlier the role of the Church in the work of mediation and conflict resolution. I hope what I say next will bring more power to the right reverend Prelate’s elbow.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, rightly said that London has a remarkable convening power. Earlier this year, my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland hosted a group of senior Christian and Muslim religious leaders from Nigeria, prior to a peacebuilding summit that was hosted and convened in London by a former colleague of ours, Bishop Justin Welby. Those leaders were all opponents at one time, and some were enemies. Over the last month, starting at that event here in London, they have started to build relationships and plot paths to peace in parts of their country where conflict is rife.

My noble friends Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale and Lord Griffiths of Burry Port both made it clear that local ownership is essential for successful mediation. Those Nigerian leaders would have been clear, and are clear, that there are only really Nigerian solutions for Nigerian problems; coming to London does not put things right. However, what we have learned from this experience is that the support of our Government and the US Government, in helping to enable and empower those leaders to take a role in their community, has been more than powerful.

I thank my noble friend Lady Chapman of Darlington, who, in her then role as the Minister, addressed the leaders when they came to your Lordships’ House. I am grateful to Minister McNeill, the new Minister for International Development and Africa, who confirmed, only this week, her support for the Government working with those faith leaders in Nigeria. I am particularly grateful to David Smith MP, our UK Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, who has worked hard with those faith leaders to encourage them in the work they are doing in their own country. We recently met again in Abuja in Nigeria and received great support from both the British and the US embassies, with the high commissioner and the US chargé d’affaires attending and engaging in the discussions. While conflict is not going down in Nigeria—sadly, it is rising in large parts of the country—these discussions, wherever you go, are a cause for real hope and, most importantly, for real practical action. A path to peace is being laid out by these leaders.

Far from engaging only with other people of faith or other faith leaders, those leaders in Nigeria are demonstrating an extraordinary capacity to build relationships both wide and deep. Together, they can engage those people who perpetrate violence; together, they can engage those people who are in danger of being drawn into violence; and together, sadly, they have to engage the victims and survivors of violence. I obviously encourage the Government to continue their support for the work of those faith leaders in Nigeria, but I also ask that we explore whether there are other regions in the world where religious diplomacy might be a route to help us support mediation and conflict resolution.

Following that false assumption, I want to raise a lazy one: the assumption that faith is more responsible for conflict than it is for peace. We do not have too long to go into that now, but often when religion is blamed for these conflicts, it is a false or thin depiction of that faith, often through radicalisation and extremism. Exploited by others, these false depictions become something that adds to conflict and local tension. In such situations, faith is actually not the poison; it is the antidote. Faith leaders have a moral and theological authority to call out bad actors in their community, to influence people to take a different path and to modify bad behaviours. In Mozambique, the United Nations has worked extensively with bishops to prevent acts of terrorism—the fight against ISIS. Where government sometimes lacked the ability and the authority to ask communities to do things differently, faith leaders provided powerful and practical solutions and, over a period, were able to reduce significantly the recruitment of community members into extremist activities. In Mozambique, we experienced that authentic expressions of faith can enable mediation and prevent conflict.

In 2025, my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, whom I mentioned earlier, met two of the Nigerians who came to London in September, as she presented Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa with the inaugural Commonwealth Peace Prize. Some 40 years ago, James and Muhammad were fighting in rival militias; they had been recruited by local extremists and were waging war on each other’s communities— James lost his right arm in the process. However, as faith leaders, they have built a friendship and become reconciled. They have created an interfaith mediation centre and now run a national network of peace clubs, with more than 10,000 members, in their country. They are a parable of the power of faith leaders to build lasting relationships and to provide moral leadership that changes attitudes, behaviours, communities and—one day, I hope—their country.

I very much look forward to the response of my noble friend the Minister. I close with two questions for the Government. First, I am so grateful for the ongoing support of His Majesty’s Government for the faith leaders in Nigeria who are working so hard to build a path towards peace. In Nigeria and other countries, David Smith, our FoRB envoy, is playing a leading role in helping His Majesty’s Government to harness the power of faith and to build our capacity for religious diplomacy. At the launch of our freedom of religion or belief strategy at the FCDO in 2025, the department committed to publishing an annual report on the progress and impact made in this area. I am interested to know from my noble friend the Minister when we might expect the first of these reports, because it will provide valuable opportunities to recognise, celebrate and promote the important work that our Government are undertaking. In dark and difficult times, I hope we can find some good news, which is desperately needed.

Secondly, the FCDO’s Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation provides excellent specialist expertise in conflict prevention, mediation, peace process and stabilisation. It works with Governments, international institutions and civil society, and only this week a leading actor in this field was lauding its work to me. I am interested to know from the Minister how that unit can make an even greater impact by working with faith communities and religious diplomacy to draw on their unique relationships, local knowledge and moral authority to strengthen the UK’s impact in preventing and resolving conflict.

In closing, let us exercise smart power, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, mentioned earlier. Let us not be the victims of false or lazy assumptions; let us recognise the vital role of religious diplomacy in mediation and peacebuilding. Let us recognise the unique and remarkable relational capacity and the moral and theological influence and authority of religious leaders in conflict zones around the world, and let us do all we can to support them as they work faithfully on the front line of international mediation and peacebuilding.

14:11

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I join all other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on initiating this debate and on the way he introduced it. We have had a pretty wide-ranging debate, with lots of different perspective brought into play, which is as it should be and is extremely valuable.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said that the problem with the Government is that they have tended to step back rather than step up. I am glad that he went on to say that there were some more positive things, and I think we should relate to that. However, it seems to me that the conversation we have is less about peacekeeping at the moment and more about conflict resolution, because until you resolve a conflict it is very difficult to keep the peace, and things have been moving in a pretty bad direction. However, this debate has been extremely instructive.

The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, about his role as an intermediary were fascinating. He made it absolutely clear, as many other speakers have, that quiet engagement below the headlines can often make the difference, and he cited some really interesting examples. The work that has been done there is extremely valuable and not to be overlooked, and I am glad that he brought that to the debate.

It was also pointed out that peacekeeping and conflict prevention represent value for money, but, unfortunately, we are not actually providing the money at the moment. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford touched on a very powerful point. She said that the concept at the moment seems to be that you have to wage war to secure peace. That is increasingly the way some of the conflicts look, and it is extremely difficult to know how you can pull them back to say, “Actually, no, you have to fight for peace”. That was an interesting analogy because, as I will come on to say, one of the problems we have is that too many of the protagonists are not interested in peace.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, quite rightly said that we should not just reach for the same old toolkit, useful as it may be; we have to recognise that, in a changing world, we are going to have to find different ways of doing things. Increasingly, also, it is not just about states but non-state actors, and sometimes we have to invest in the long term.

I was cited by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, whose intervention was not unexpected. I do not wish to discredit his own genuine view, which is not widely shared but which he has come to on his own basis—I am not suggesting that he is an agent for anybody else—but the reason I raised the Budapest memorandum is that he is looking for a solution which will require the same guarantors who have not honoured the original memorandum. It is difficult, therefore, to see how you can get a settlement that can be trusted, which is really the problem we face.

I want to pick up in particular what the noble Lords, Lord Hastings and Lord Bates, said. We have to engage with people we do not like, we have to take the criticisms as to why we are talking to them, and we have to do it both publicly and privately, and extensively, and be more objective. Those are powerful arguments, and all the best peace outcomes have always had that characteristic to make them happen.

As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said in his opening remarks, conflicts have proliferated to the extent that we currently have the highest level and number of conflicts since the Second World War. The worst ones, with none showing any capacity for peace interventions, are clearly Sudan, the Middle East and Gaza and Ukraine. I am afraid that, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, the UN’s current weakness is revealed for all to see. Much of this is exacerbated by the disengagement of the main players on whom the UN depends: notably, Russia, the US and, to a lesser extent, China.

The UK, which supports peacekeeping and conflict prevention and resolution, has actually cut its funding to peace initiatives. I just checked the figures for the integrated security fund: for the current year, there is £854 million; next year, £545 million; the following year, £499 million; and the year after that, £471 million. That is the Government’s financial commitment to peacekeeping declining. It is not all about money—I accept that—but it is, I suggest, a movement in the wrong direction.

Turning to some of the conflicts, in Sudan I find it slightly extraordinary that, with Saudi Arabia supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces and the UAE supporting the Rapid Support Forces, they are also half of the mediating quad, which also includes Egypt and the United States. It is difficult to see progress or even the capacity to prevent the most appalling atrocities and humanitarian abuses when the mediators are also protagonists in the process. The UK is the penholder, so one question to the Minister is: to what extent can we exert some pressure? We had an earlier Question about aerial bombardment in Sudan, which has been perpetrated as extensions of two of the outside players. What can the Government do to put pressure on those two players to stop these atrocities and to pay a price if they do not, as my noble friend Lord Purvis called for in the earlier Question?

In the Middle East, we have not yet had the results of the Israeli elections, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has escalated assaults in the West Bank and Gaza, and he has been actively encouraged to do so by the White House—although I am not quite sure who is encouraging whom—when President Trump described him as a warrior Prime Minister, which is supposed to be a compliment. We are talking about peace, and he praises a warrior Prime Minister. Both sides in the Middle East are now promoting single-state solutions, turning their backs on the two-state solution, which is the only thing that offers long-term peace and stability. We still must not abandon our aspiration to get there, however difficult it may be. Tony Blair commented of the Belfast agreement, when he was made envoy for the quartet, that it was ironic that there was no agreed long-term solution to the division of Ireland, but peace had been secured, whereas there was an agreed and viable long-term solution to Middle East peace, but there was no peace. In the midst of this current situation, Trump and Netanyahu have started a war that they do not know how to end.

On Ukraine, we have equivocal support, not from us, but from the United States—or from the White House; I see the difference—and pressure to end the war by surrendering. It is no longer just equivocal support; it has now switched to outright support for Putin’s Russia, with Trump’s envoy, Witkoff, describing Putin as humanitarian for releasing one US prisoner. That might be welcome, but he was ignoring the daily slaughter of Ukrainian civilians by Russian drones and missiles, aggravated by the United States’ degrading of Ukraine’s defence capability.

It difficult to see how we can get out of these situations while the main players are behaving in this way. It must almost be observed that they do not want peace. They just want their side to win at all costs. How on earth are we supposed to respond to this? We must of course support the United Nations and initiatives that may fly. However, when President Trump seriously nominates Viktor Orbán as the candidate to be Secretary-General of the United Nations, it is obvious that, for the time being, we must look to other ways of promoting peace.

The conflicts that I have referred to are promoted by misogynistic leaders with the characteristics of bullies and cowards. The UN recognised in the year 2000 with Resolution 1325 that lasting peace required the active participation of women. Yet, precisely because so many of these conflicts are about power and control by men, they are still too often ignored—while mobilising humanitarian relief and exposing abuse is all that we are left with. Yet women played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process and are conspicuous in the fight for Ukraine’s survival.

We have been talking about the United Nations and the international community. What is the role of the UK? We need a reset, a SWOTs analysis, to see what our strengths are and to deliver them on a priority basis. I ask the Minister whether that could be considered.

14:21

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, for initiating this important debate and all noble Lords for their contributions.

Throughout the debate, a number of points appealed to me and struck a chord. Funnily enough, it was noble the Baroness, Lady Chapman, who talked about trust and her predecessor, my noble friend Lord Ahmad, who talked about relationships. We are talking about smart power, regional ownership, local peacebuilders and the importance of moving quickly on mediation when conflict occurs. However, none of this will proceed unless there is the political will for it to succeed. This debate has looked at how the contributions from different sectors can push more mediation and prevention of global conflict.

We live in an increasingly dangerous world. It has been said many times in this debate, but in a debate such as this it is right that we reflect on the conflicts that we are seeing all over the world, as noble Lords have, whether in Sudan, the Holy Land, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan or the Philippines. It seems almost that wherever we look there is conflict, as many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and my noble friend Lord Bates have said: 2025 saw 65 active state-based conflicts across 35 countries, the highest number recorded since 1946. There are many more places in the world today in tension to an extent that threatens conflict. The appalling scenes in Ceuta earlier this year showed the threat that illegal migration poses to countries across the world. In France, internal disorder has seen the mass destruction of livelihoods and public buildings. Every one of us wants to see order and peace in every part of the world. His Majesty’s Government should continue to use all the diplomatic tools available to work towards that goal.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, has highlighted the importance of mediation in his Motion today, and we are particularly well placed as a nation to support mediation. We are a nation that respects the rule of law and is known the world over for our respect for fairness and, as other noble Lords have said, for our Diplomatic Service. But Britain today does not have the global reach it once had, and we must reflect on that. Can the Minister, when he replies to this debate, comment on the reality of Britain’s role in our increasingly unstable world and say what specific steps his department is taking to promote peace and an end to conflict across the world? In particular, can he say what work his department is doing towards a stable and long-lasting two-state solution in Israel and Palestine?

As a member state, Britain supports the work of the United Nations in promoting peace and stability through its Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Fund and the Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office. I understand that this structure has recently been reviewed. Can the Minister say whether the United Kingdom fed into that review process and, if yes, what submissions did we make? I would also be grateful if the Minister could comment on the broader challenges faced by the UN, not least as a result of the fact that Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, is pursuing an illegal war in Ukraine, and what His Majesty’s Government’s position is on that.

The UK has contributed £630 million per year in funding for the UN for the last decade. Can Minister say whether the Government intend to continue that level of contribution or increase it? Further to that, can he say what work his department is doing to ensure that funding is going to the right places? We have all followed with interest the controversy surrounding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Can Minister update the House on the Government’s assessment of the situation at UNRWA? But mediation after conflict has begun is not enough. Constant engagement, rebuilding and trade across cultural divides has an important role to play. Can the Minister say what work Ministers are doing to promote constructive engagement between nations in conflict areas across the world?

The harsh truth is that, when conflict occurs, there is often a call for more direct intervention. Peace cannot always be achieved through mediation and international co-operation alone. We saw that in Sierra Leone, where a total of nearly 4,500 British personnel were deployed in-country. We must not forget that five dedicated British military personnel lost their lives in that conflict. We saw it again in the Balkans, where tens of thousands of British troops served as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission. A total of 72 British Armed Forces personnel have died as a result of those operations in the Balkans, including in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia, since 1992. We should remember their service too.

Diplomacy is essential but, without hard power, as mentioned by other noble Lords, Britain cannot play a full role alongside our international allies and partners. That is why defence spending is so important and why it was disappointing to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer fail yesterday to set out a clear plan to hit the 3% of GDP spending target on defence. The Budget was in many ways an exercise in avoiding the tough decisions that we expect Ministers to tackle, and that was true on defence. Not only are we still waiting for the 3% spending plan, but the Chancellor has been accused of stealth cuts to the defence budget by diverting pensions savings to the Treasury rather than the defence budget.

The situation we are in on defence spending sends the wrong message to our allies, and it is important to get that message right. Overall, this debate has been really informative. It has given much food for thought and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

14:30

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Wood of Anfield) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am also very grateful to my noble friend Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale for securing this debate and for the way he opened it with his experience, reflections and wisdom on this broad issue. I pay tribute to his work as co-chair of the All-Party Group on conflict and peacebuilding, and to his long personal commitment to peace in many parts of the world, particularly in Mindanao, which he spoke about.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. It is a debate that has brought not just experience of diplomacy, negotiation and the slow challenging work of building peace on the ground but a sense that peacebuilding is not the work of Governments alone. In fact, sometimes Governments are not the best-placed partners to make progress. I will come back to some of those points in a minute and I will try to respond to as many of them as I can. Apologies if I do not get to everything, but I will come back to you if I do not.

In particular, I would like to start by endorsing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, that we should stop the revolving door of ministerial appointments. I could not agree more; we should start that right now.

We meet at a sobering moment. As many noble Lords have said, including my noble friend Lord McConnell and the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, there are more conflicts in the world today than at any time since the Second World War. The figure my noble friend mentioned was that a quarter of a million people died in violent conflicts across the world in 2025. Conflict is driving terrible humanitarian crises, forcing families from their homes and seeing the most appalling atrocities committed against innocent people. We talked about Sudan earlier. I will come back to that in a minute. It is perhaps the most egregious example but, sadly, they are all too common.

The noble Lord, Lord Redwood, mentioned Ukraine. Just last month I was in Ukraine, meeting veterans, families, civil society leaders and others enduring a brutal assault on their country. I went to the village of Yahidne, which some noble Lords may know about. Just after the invasion, some 400 people were held in a school basement there for 27 days. I was taken around that basement by people who were in there without food, lighting or any provisions, and by people whose family members had suffered, some of whom had died. Ten people died in that basement. In Kyiv, I visited a UK-funded centre that is doing the heartbreaking but extraordinary work of tracing children who have been stolen from occupied territories and deported to Russia, where they have been adopted by Russian families. In the short time in my job, the human cost of this one example and the incredible courage of ordinary Ukrainians in this war is something I will not forget.

A few days after that I went to Toronto, where I joined more than 80 countries at a conference to discuss how to respond collectively to the problems that Ukrainians under Russian control face. There, we committed to convene a core group with Ukraine in London on the identification, return and reintegration of civilians from the occupied territories detained by Russia. That is perhaps a small example, but it is one of an attempt at peacemaking: the patient, often unseen work of getting people home, working with NGOs in the community of nations, trying to secure a just and lasting peace at a time when prospects seem pretty bleak, and using international law to do so.

I take seriously the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, on the need to have a heard-headed strategy to go along with that. In a nutshell, our strategy is to raise the costs of conflict for Russia so that it is forced—reluctantly, perhaps—to come to negotiation and discussion. This is at a time when Ukraine has made it clear, even at some cost to itself, that it is prepared to engage in those discussions. I am pleased to say that we are doing a variety to things, from sanctions to incessant diplomatic work, to try to achieve that outcome.

On prevention, beyond tragedies overseas, we have all seen how the effects of conflict reach our own shores—through irregular migration, organised crime, and higher costs for families here at home. For those who do not look abroad perhaps as much as noble Lords in this debate do, with their expertise and interests, prevention is in the national interest. My noble friend Lord McConnell is right that prioritising prevention is crucial. It is a hard-headed choice. It is not a soft option. Acting early saves lives and saves money. Mediation—helping those who are fighting to find a way to stop—is one of the most practical tools we have.

This theme has recurred in this debate: prioritising prevention is not the job of a single small group of people sitting in the Foreign Office; it runs through the activities across the Foreign Office and across government departments. Money is crucial, of course, and I will come back to that, but it is not reflected in a single pot of money allocated to something called “prevention”. It is much broader than that. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who has extensive knowledge of this across six Foreign Secretaries and five Prime Ministers, rightly talked about the interconnection of different activities, such as peacebuilding, prevention, peacekeeping and mediation.

However, we have to acknowledge that the world of peacemaking in particular has changed—although the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, is right that we need more imagination in thinking about pre-emptive action and the way that the UK Government should act in the future. On the one hand, the group of states playing significant mediation roles has expanded, as my noble friend Lord McConnell mentioned at the start. However, as my noble friend Lady Chapman pointed out, some deals are short-term and transactional, do not stick, and leave the causes and drivers of conflict untouched. Some deals between states have that characteristic, as well as deals between non-state actors. The United Nations has also found it much harder to play the role it once did, which is a point many noble Lords have made. That must shape how we think about our role.

So what is our role? The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, rightly challenged me to spell it out. I will put it in three sets of categories or clusters of activities. Before I say that, it is striking that there was universal agreement that the UK, for all our faults, has pedigree in this area and a strong reputation. Despite some parts of the world thinking we are perhaps historically tainted in some ways, we are a country full of organisations, diplomats and experts that has a positive role to play. We should be proud of that and it continues to be true, for all the challenges we face. I will put the UK strategy in three parts: the first is to bring expertise, the second is on partnerships, and the third is to strengthen and protect the institutions of peace.

I will start on bringing expertise. We rarely lead mediation processes ourselves, often because others—NGOs, other countries or faith groups, to come back to my noble friend Lord Rook’s point—are better placed and more trusted by the parties concerned. Instead, we tend to back mediators, regional organisations and parties themselves, drawing on our diplomatic relationships, our influence, our expertise, back channels and ceasefires. We have experience: the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, referred to the sad, painful experience in Northern Ireland, which gives us a mixture of pain, experience, credibility and wisdom, and enables us to have some perspective and authority.

My noble friend Lord McConnell knows this from Mindanao: in 2009, at the request of the parties, the UK led the formation of the international contact group, alongside others such as Japan and Saudi Arabia, and helped pave the way to a peace agreement that has significantly reduced violence. On Colombia, which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, referred to—he is about to meet former President Santos, as he said—my noble friend Lady Chapman noted in quite moving detail the specific way in which UK engagement actually made a difference, particularly in the perceptions of the enemy at the point of demobilisation. Here, the UK used its role on the Security Council to keep international support behind the peace process.

Through our new conflict and violence community of expertise, we deploy specialists on mediation, atrocity prevention and conflict-related sexual violence where they are needed. Through our conflict resolution programme, we have funded expert partners to support dialogue in some of the hardest places to achieve that. Much of that work is very discreet and is not talked about, for good reason: as many noble Lords have mentioned, discretion is an important part of keeping people safe and keeping talks alive.

On this issue, I want to go back to my noble friend Lord Rook’s comments on the role of faith-based organisations and individuals. I always love listening to my noble friend; he is one of my favourite speakers. He raised two issues. Last year, when we announced our approach to freedom of religion or belief, the Government made a commitment that we would have a report, and I can confirm that the report, which outlines the progress we have made, will be presented to the Prime Minister before the end of this year. On contact between FCDO conflict experts and religious leaders, I am pleased to say that it not only is crucial but happens frequently. It is pivotal to informing the FCDO’s understanding on how to use its influence, where not to use its influence, where to delegate, where to use partnerships and other approaches.

The second theme is building partnerships. As my noble friend Lord McConnell mentioned, since 2025 we have formalised co-operation on conflict resolution with Qatar and Turkey, for example. I know from our ambassador in Qatar how much effort he and his team are putting into that partnership, particularly with the Iran conflict and other conflicts in mind. They are partners with growing roles as mediators whose expertise we value. We have also begun working with Japan’s new mediation unit, which I know my noble friend has championed, and we are deepening our co-operation with the European Union, as provided for by the security and defence partnership.

Again, our job is not to crowd an already crowded field; it is to help those with access and more legitimacy than we sometimes have to succeed. As I mentioned earlier in answer to a Question on Sudan, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary was in Istanbul last week for an E3+R4 meeting looking at ways in which countries with other kinds of relationships in areas such as Sudan and Iran can play a more constructive role.

I come back to a very important point that my noble friend Lady Chapman raised. She is completely right about the framing of responses being overly dictated by the last response. With my academic hat on—I can never quite give up being an academic—there is a wonderful book by Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War, which is precisely about military engagement falling prey to exactly the same vice: fighting the current war based on the lessons from a previous war. Peacebuilding can suffer from some of those same vices as well. That is an incredibly important point.

The third set of activities to which I want to draw attention is strengthening the institutions of peace. I was in Vienna last month where I opened the UK’s chairpersonship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is one of the few multilateral institutions where we sit around the table with Russia and which, in my view, is more valuable for that. In my speech—I am sure noble Lords have read it, but I will just summarise for those who may have missed it—I talked about how dialogue matters most when trust is at its lowest ebb and how Europe’s security institutions still have a role, despite it being unfashionable in many quarters, to manage risk and prevent escalation. We will keep investing in them. For example, we have contributed more than £200 million to the UN peacebuilding fund since 2006, which makes us a very long-standing and loyal donor.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, gave us a chastening and correct challenge to try to recapture the spirit of 1945. Let us be honest: this is not a good time for multilateralism and the UN. It is therefore not a time for us to walk away from these multilateral institutions. To go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, it is a time to try to put some steel back in the multilateral architecture. I will respond to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, in a minute.

It is also a time to beware false choices, which have been presented in some noble Lords’ comments today, between hard and soft power. I completely agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford’s point that if you want peace you have to invest in the institutions of multilateral co-operation that bring it about and not assume war. There is also the false choice of thinking that it is either defence or development. Of course, this has been a very difficult time because of the cuts that have been made to the development budget. But there is a more fundamental challenge than just zero-sum trade-offs of funding, which is to rethink the way we think about defence and to bring security, economic and military dimensions—pre-emptive downstream interventions—into our concept of what proper security and defence are about.

We helped shape last year’s review of the UN’s peacekeeping architecture. We fund the UN’s mediation experts, and as the UN prepares for a new Secretary-General, we want a United Nations that uses its good offices actively and early. Regional organisations matter too, particularly the African Union, for example. We will support these organisations to make that commitment real and will work with the World Bank and other international finance institutions so that money flows to prevention before violence breaks out.

Several noble Lords raised early warning, including the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad. The problem is rarely that we cannot see a crisis coming; we usually can. It is about turning warning into action. The FCDO has developed a variety of mechanisms and tools to support early warning and early action across the network. The importance of using technology to improve translation of that early warning into action was a point well made. The Foreign Office is bringing conflict, atrocity and humanitarian analysis together into a single view of risk, drawing on our embassies, open-source data and horizon scanning. We support local civil society organisations to strengthen their early-warning functions.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned atrocity prevention. I welcome the challenge in the Peace Works report launched by my noble friend’s all-party group and in the Atrocity Crimes Review published earlier this month. We are considering their recommendations carefully. I am particularly considering their recommendations carefully because my old boss, Gordon Brown, spoke at the launch of the review, and I have learned over the years not to ignore Gordon Brown, especially on early-warning issues. Officials are meeting the authors, and I would be glad for our officials to meet my noble friend and the group’s officers as well.

I was going to talk about some particular cases. Given the time, I probably will not, but we talked about Sudan earlier and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, challenged us on Sudan. There are definitely complexities with those involved in peacemaking also being parties that have interests. That is not just a complexity of Sudan, but clearly it is a complexity there. What are we doing? We had an UNGA event specifically on the drone attacks to try to make some progress on that. We are leaders of the coalition for atrocity prevention group, and there is constant engagement on this. I am sure there is more that can be done, but it is not a field in which we are silent.

I also want to mention the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, on the question of the International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, which I believe he was instrumental in starting. We are continuing to prioritise that. We work with Colombia, the DRC, which I think is chair this year, Ukraine and others. We are vice-chair this year, and it is an agenda that is being actively pursued with energy from the United Kingdom.

Inclusion is vital. Peace agreements are more likely to last when, for example and in particular, women participate in a meaningful way, and parties are more likely to come back to the table if talks falter. We need women’s leadership and meaningful participation in these spaces. We have protected funding for women, peace and security, and we are refreshing our national action plan on this. Inclusion also means hearing local peacebuilders, the people who raise the alarm first, stay the longest and have most at stake. We must do more to protect women peacebuilders and human rights defenders who face growing intimidation, reprisals and violence.

Many noble Lords asked about resources. I will not pretend that reducing aid to 0.3% was easy and has not had trade-offs—of course it has. It has had consequences, but we are concentrating on where we can do most good. I am pleased to say that more than 70% of our country and regional aid will go to fragile and conflict-affected states by 2028-29. As I said earlier, and I speak as someone who used to come up with pots of money as a Treasury special adviser for a previous Chancellor, this is an area where money is crucial, but the magnitude of commitment cannot be expressed simply by how many people work in a particular unit or how much money goes to a particular sub-activity inside the Foreign Office, crucial as that is.

The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, rightly challenged us on defence, although traditionally the spending review is when spending decisions are made. At least, that is my understanding. There will be more to say on that.

To conclude, the success of prevention is often invisible: the war that did not start, the ceasefire that held, the talks that kept going when everyone thought they would fail. These are non-events that are huge events in the world of peacekeeping and peacebuilding. It is one of the best investments that we can make in security for people living through conflict and for us here at home. Our role is to bring expertise, build partnerships and strengthen institutions.

I will make two quick last remarks even though I am hitting my time limit. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, asked whether Britain was afraid to speak. Absolutely not—I say that with all due respect. Without being pious, I see myself as part of a team of Ministers at the Foreign Office who are putting ending suffering and violence at the forefront on Israel, even though many noble Lords will not agree with our position on Israel and in our Israel reset, on Sudan and on Ukraine. I am sure everyone will keep us challenged on that, but it is absolutely at the centre.

Lastly, are we afraid to talk to those with whom we disagree? This point was made by the noble Lords, Lord Bates—whom I congratulate on bringing Dan Burn’s name into a debate on conflict prevention—Lord Hastings, Lord Anderson, and others. The answer is yes, sometimes we are too afraid to speak to those with whom we disagree. That is probably true of our Government at times, so that is a good challenge, because lines of communication are more, not less, important when tensions and conflicts are at their greatest. That is a salutary lesson to take away.

14:51

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for such a fascinating, interesting and thought-provoking series of speeches in a debate that I am sure will live on in the minds of those of us who have been here to listen for days, weeks and perhaps even months to come. My thanks go in particular to my noble friend the Minister for his wide-ranging response. There is much there for us to think about, but also for us to welcome. It would be impossible to comment on even a range of the points that have been made, but I will briefly comment on two.

The first is in relation to the United Nations. Many noble Lords mentioned the importance of the United Nations, and many others reflected on the frustration about the ability of the United Nations to do its job in 2026. Given the Government’s commitment to decentralisation, devolution and the understanding that not everything can be done centrally, perhaps one of the questions we need to address over the next 20 years towards the centenary of the United Nations is whether everything centralised in New York is the right format for an organisation that has grown from 50-odd states in 1946 to nearly 200 today. Perhaps those regional organisations that I have referred to regularly in debates such as this—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, which has an important role in the Middle East these days, and so many others—provide forums through which we can deal with many of these issues much more successfully.

Finally, I want to comment on the issue of patience and persistence and sticking with the difficult business of peacebuilding. When I first became involved in the Philippines in 2014, there was much enthusiasm about the peace agreement. Nine months later, the Philippine National Police, at the instigation probably of the United States of America, went looking for a couple of Malaysian terrorists in the area that was controlled by the erstwhile Moro rebels. They were not warned in advance. They thought they were under attack. They attacked the police officers who had gone into the area, and killed 41 police officers. There were calls in Manila at the time to scrap the peace agreement, to tear it up, to go back to square one, and to go in and kill everybody who was associated with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front rather than stick with the peace agreement.

I was in Manila at the time and I was asked to do a series of interviews. I recalled the Omagh bombing in 1998, the worst bombing during the whole of the conflict in Northern Ireland, six months after the Good Friday agreement, and the calls on Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern to cancel the agreement because of that bombing and their determination not to do so at that time. My calculation in 2015 was that every single child leaving school in Northern Ireland that year aged 16 had lived their entire life in peace as a result of that decision not to cancel the peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. I am glad to say that my colleagues in the Philippines stuck with it through three Presidents and even a change of local leadership from the liberation front, and tomorrow they will elect their first ever chief minister in an autonomous parliament that, I hope, will give them peace for many decades to come. Persistence, sticking with it, going through the bad times as well as the good times, dealing with your opponents and having an inclusive process are essential, and I am very glad that our debate reflected that today.

Motion agreed