Bahrain

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I can give the right reverend Prelate that assurance.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, my noble friend is probably not aware that I raised this matter of Bahraini human rights with the Foreign Secretary as long ago as September 2010, and he assured me that, due to our excellent relations with the Government of Bahrain, these at that point relatively minor human rights transgressions would be sorted out. The situation has only got worse since then. Will my noble friend please go back and suggest that the matter also be taken up with the Saudi Interior Minister, who I understand is visiting the United Kingdom at the moment, and indeed the whole of the Gulf Cooperation Council, because simply talking to Bahrain and hoping that good relations will solve the issue will not do so?

[Baroness Warsi]

I assure my noble friend that we are not simply talking and hoping, and that some specifics have been put in place. The BICI recommendations are a starting point, and the UPR built on that. We have had some recent progress, in that legislation will be introduced to reduce the ban on associations and assembly. There have also been some specific incidents whereby permits have been given for those protests to take place. So progress is constantly being made; it is not simply a question of our talking and hoping.

EU: United States Free Trade Agreement

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I think it is the turn of my noble friend Lady Falkner.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Is my noble friend aware of the United States’s concerns about its influence with both the United Kingdom and the European Union should the United Kingdom seek to distance itself from the current arrangements it has as a serious partner in the EU? Will he consider, in the light of the US-UK free trade agreement what the implications might be if we proceed to distance ourselves from within the European Union?

[Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint]

My noble friend asks a very important question which embraces the wider issue of the British relationship with the European Union. I think it is appropriate for me to stress that as far as trade and the single market are concerned, Britain’s role in the EU is extremely important, both to it and to the EU. Our chances of a good trade agreement that is of interest to the US are much greater in the context of a European Union negotiation.

European Union: Recent Developments

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I support the European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill, which is anticipated to be uncontroversial and a welcome measure of the progress made by Croatia in getting to this point.

The past few years have seen a consolidation of democratic norms and political stability in that country. My only concern is about the rule of law and the backlog in dealing with cases related to war crimes, but I note that the Government remain confident that this will be resolved by the expected accession date.

On the Irish protocol, again there is nothing exceptional about this being given legal form through attachment to the treaty on the European Union and the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. What is nevertheless alarming, however, is that some Members in the other place believe that the negotiation of the Irish protocol somehow serves as a model for what the UK might wish to do in future. They do not seem to notice that its extremely limited guarantees, as they see them, are in no way comparable to what they might wish to seek in a much changed EU after 2008, when that protocol was negotiated.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to discuss developments in the EU, particularly as there have been significant changes since our debate in February this year. Two of those developments stand out. There has been progress within the eurozone countries in reducing debts and stabilising the banking systems. The architecture of a new regulatory regime is emerging, as we have just heard in the Statement on the European Council, albeit very slowly indeed.

The other development has been here in this country—the speed with which we have embarked on a new tone in the debate about our relationship with the European Union. We now have a situation where opinion polling on the EU, always a minority interest in the past, is carried out regularly in our media and shows significant support for a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU. That is a marked change over the past decade.

I do not find this particularly surprising. Developments in the eurozone are bound to impact on our own calculations. When 17 or a smaller number of countries move to a full fiscal and budgetary union with strong political underpinnings, it is inevitable that we will be affected. For an outward-looking, open-trading nation such as Britain, if there is a fundamental change to the architecture governing finance, capital, investment and labour, we certainly have skin in that fight.

A cursory glance at the figures reveals a lot. Since the 1980s, the UK’s bilateral trade with EU members has more than trebled. More than 45% of UK exports are to the EU. The single market, one of the more remarkable achievements of the past few decades, has given us access to a market of more than 500 million consumers. The UK attracts one-fifth of all foreign direct investment in Europe—mainly because of our membership, one assumes. While these arguments about protecting our national interests are familiar to all those across the House who clearly see what is at stake in the calls for an “in or out” referendum, I will explain where the opponents of proactive participation are coming from.

We have on the one hand those who believe that they are enhancing the UK’s negotiating position by threatening a referendum. In their book is the naive proposition that other European countries will be so cowed by the mere prospect of the UK departing that they will put up no resistance whatever in granting the UK exceptions, and that will undermine their own countries’ interests. Hence these people strike impossible bargaining positions and votes in the other place, confident that triangulation will work. This is a cynical and dangerous game and prone to failure, which is why it is so sad to see the Labour Party on the Benches opposite legitimising that position in the other place as recently as the Budget negotiations.

The second group are those who genuinely believe that we should leave the EU, and that the consequences will merely place us alongside Norway or Switzerland. This group are not just naïve; they are simply deluded. To posit an equivalence with Norway, which rides on its massive US $600 billion sovereign wealth fund and vast reserves of oil and gas, which protect a population the size of Scotland, is simply not to understand the challenges that this country faces.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

Most of us who want to leave do not equate our position with Norway, or indeed with Switzerland. We believe that we want to run our own affairs independently, so please let us not run the canard of being like Norway or Switzerland. That is not the case for those of us who want out.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

The noble Lord cannot have been listening very carefully. If he had been, he would have noticed that I did not name any particular players in this regard. They come from all sides.

Norway’s membership of EFTA and the EEA is about as close to the EU as it is possible to be without actually belonging. It is bound by most EU rules and regulations and pays a significant amount into EU coffers. Norway depends on other countries to fight its corner, not least on Britain and Sweden. As the Economist describes the relationship:

“It would be as though Britain maintained a golden fax machine linked to Brussels, which cost billions of pounds a year to run and from which regulations issued ceaselessly”.

Indeed, the Norwegian Government have carried out its own assessment, which found:

“As a result Norway has implemented nearly three quarters of all EU legislation, 99.6% of all single market legislation (some 1,700 EU directives), and is ranked 4th best performing country”.

That also includes the working time directive, the supposed cause of so much frustration in the UK.

The Swiss model would probably not be available, as the EU would be unlikely to extend EFTA privileges to as large and significant a country as the UK without requiring convergence across a range of areas. Switzerland is implementing most EU financial services legislation to avoid being locked out of the single market. With 50% of British trade within the EU, and single-market access so essential for attracting foreign investment, the UK would end up in the same position: implementing EU laws but with no say over them. No British votes, no British Commissioner, no British MEPs—a substantial democratic deficit.

It is instructive that even Open Europe, whose lack of enthusiasm for the EU is well known, has found that:

“EU membership remains the best option for the UK.”

All the alternatives come with major drawbacks and would all, except the WTO option, require negotiation with the agreement of the other member states, which would come with unpredictable political and economic risks. This means that negotiating a new UK relationship with Europe outside the EU treaties—that is, leaving the EU—would present similar difficulties as renegotiating membership terms while remaining a member of the EU.

The position of both camps, along with elements of the Labour Party, assumes that there is the possibility of cherry picking items for removal from the UK’s obligations. This unilateralism is wrong-headed and was clearly identified as such by Mr Damian Green just last week, when he said:

“There is a fantastic vision of an EU which remains a single market, including the UK, but which in all other respects allows the UK to be outside … This is a fantastic vision precisely because it is a fantasy. What is in this for those on the other side of the negotiation?”.

If one read the French, Italian or indeed the Polish newspapers, one would find that the answer to Mr Green’s question might be, “Nothing”, accompanied with the word “Goodbye”.

If ever there was a time for serious reflection and for all political sides to weigh carefully where these calls will take us, it is now. We need to be clear-headed about a call for a referendum, which, if necessary at all, will be so only after a future treaty change that significantly shifts competences to the EU institutions at some date in the future. An abstract discussion on whether Britain is in or out does service neither to democracy nor to the national interest. One can either be clear that there is something substantive on the table, with readily understood pros and cons, or one can play the Alex Salmond card, which is to act first and fill in the blanks later, with resulting confusion and obfuscation.

For our part, the Liberal Democrats are entirely clear. In the coalition agreement, we have agreed to hold a referendum only when there is a treaty change. However, we are clear too that the United Kingdom’s best interests lie in being an active participant in the EU, being at the table, championing our cause, making common cause with others who are like-minded, building alliances where we can and standing firm when we must—well grounded, secure and well placed in the club of 27.

North Korea

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank]

My Lords—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. Perhaps we could hear from my noble friend and then the noble and gallant Lord.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, this has been the third serious provocation in less than four years by North Korea. The noble Baroness referred to the potential of the UN Security Council meeting. Will she assure the House that in the conversations that will be had with China with respect to potential Security Council sanctions against North Korea, the energy dependence of North Korea on China will be discussed, and that China will be pressed not to continue to provide oil to North Korea?

[Baroness Warsi]

I will certainly take on the views of my noble friend.

BBC: World Service

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

Again, the noble Lord raises an important issue. I am not sure whether it has been discussed at the National Security Council, but I can check that and write to him. I completely agree with him that the BBC World Service is, and remains, an important part of our soft power. Indeed, YouGov has recently said that the UK ranks extremely highly in relation to soft power. We are known as a soft power superpower. However, I am sure that the noble Lord will agree with me that at times priorities have to be assessed and that these changes in priorities have been made at various times. Indeed, under the previous Labour Government in 2005, it was announced that the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, Slovene and Thai language radio services would end.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, will my noble friend accept that, while a balance has to be struck between financial viability and high-quality independent and impartial journalism, the balance must ensure that broadcasting to the most sensitive areas of the world, such as China and autocratic regimes in the Middle East, where the public do not have access to impartial information, must remain a priority? Can she assure the House that after 2014 the Foreign Secretary will retain his role in setting the strategic objectives of the BBC World Service?

[Baroness Warsi]

Yes, I can assure my noble friend, and indeed the House, that the Foreign Secretary will still have oversight post-2014. He will retain his current role of agreeing objectives, priorities and targets. Specific approval will be required from the Foreign Secretary to open or close a specific language service. I completely agree that it is important to ensure that we continue to use this soft power mechanism, but I am sure that my noble friend will also agree that more and more people are looking to BBC world news and television and looking online to obtain this information.

Religion in the United Kingdom

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, for initiating this debate. I fear that he will not concur with most of what I am going to say, but I thought it important to speak in the spirit of bringing a bit of balance to the debate.

I want to emphasise the role and importance of the secular space in public life. In that arena I am a secularist, and secularists can be religious too. As a society we can uphold everyone’s right to their religion or belief as well as their right to change or abandon it. Religions have just as much right to express their views as anyone else, but those views should not be privileged in the framing of public policy and law unless specifically related to policies of non-discrimination. Secularism, often unjustly maligned, is becoming more widely understood and recognised as its importance in a multi-religious society becomes more appreciated. The UK could hardly be more multi-religious, but France, India and even the United States opted for secular constitutions to avoid hegemony by any one religion.

Separating religion and state enables those of all religions and none to participate as equal citizens. The fight for that equality, which we now take for granted, has been fought over hundreds of years by non-conformists, Catholics, Jews, and non-believers. In fact, in the 1880s the founder of the National Secular Society, the Liberal MP Charles Bradlaugh, was obstructed from taking his elected seat in another place four times because of his non-belief, and was responsible for the Oaths Act 1888 which ended this affront. We take the Bishops’ Bench rather for granted as something very normal, but, in international terms, it could hardly be less so. We sit in the only Parliament in the world that gives bishops the right to sit. None of our reform proposals contemplated their departure, except as a by-product of the wholly elected option.

Let me turn to same sex marriage to which the established church is so opposed. It is surely entitled to that view and to tell its flocks not to partake in it. However, what rather alienates those who believe in it is that the church has sought to put pressure on the Government not to legislate on same-sex marriage, despite knowing that liberal religious groups, the non-religious and probably many individual Anglicans and Catholics wish to proceed with it. The church is, therefore, still seeking to restrict others’ freedoms, and I invite it to ponder on this.

I admire much charitable work done in the name of religion. However, there are also secular charities, and doubtless those of all religions and none contribute happily to both. In a society in which church attendance continues to dwindle and congregations age—I am sure there are anecdotal exceptions, but the statistics are very clear—we rapidly approach a time when we need to think about the extent to which religious precepts should be allowed, often through the workings of both Houses, to override the view of the people on sensitive social issues. When I say “the view of the people”, I mean even religious people.

It is remarkable that, according to reputable polls taken during the Pope’s visit, only somewhere in the range of 8% to 15% of Catholics agreed with their church’s official doctrine on such sensitive social issues as contraception, homosexuality and abortion. In conclusion, I very much regret our House’s repeated rejection of assisted dying legislation and stem cell research. I am convinced that that was done on religious grounds, while the public are so markedly in favour of those.

The secular point on which I would like to conclude is that religions should not have privileged positions to restrict others' freedoms—something that they do far too often.

Bahrain

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

An amount of progress has been made, both politically and in relation to governance. Some underlying concerns, of course, need to be addressed before progress can be made politically. Much of that has been set out in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. I know that progress has been made on a special investigations unit, for example, which looks into the particular disturbances that led to the current concerns. Some progress has also been made in relation to constitutional amendments that will form the basis of reconciliation.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that while some of the recommendations of the Bassiouni commission have indeed been accepted and enforced, the principal recommendation—which was about reconciliation and talks to resolve the differences between the two sides—rested on there being an opposition with whom to have talks about reconciliation? When so many members of that opposition might have been freed but then deprived of their citizenship and are, in other words, stateless, it is impossible to have discussions with them. What are the Government doing to speak directly to the Prime Minister, rather than the Foreign Minister, of Bahrain to ask that the revocation of these peoples’ citizenship be readdressed?

[Baroness Warsi]

We have discussions at all levels in relation to this matter, including with the Prime Minister. The specific issue regarding the revocation of citizenship has been raised and our concerns have been registered. There is a right of appeal. We are pressing the Bahraini Government to consider these matters seriously during that right of appeal.

International Law: Use of Drones

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the legal and diplomatic implications of the use of drones across national boundaries.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)]

My Lords, the British Government’s position is that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles against targets is a matter for the states involved. We expect all concerned to act in accordance with international law, including taking all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties when conducting military operations.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I thank my noble friend for that reply. She will be aware that international human rights law permits the intentional use of lethal force only when necessary to protect against a threat to life and where there are no other means, such as capture, available. Targeted killings are not lawful as the action has to be strictly necessary and proportionate. Given that the use of armed drones engages four major UN conventions as well as Article 51 of the UN charter, will she tell the House what measures the UK is taking to abide by international law and to encourage allies, such as the United States, to do the same?

[Baroness Warsi]

In all our discussions when these matters are raised, we expect all states concerned to act in accordance with international law and to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. We understand that the UN special rapporteur for human rights and countering terrorism intends to give consideration to these issues of drone strikes in a future report to the UN General Assembly.

Middle East: Gaza and Syria

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The reality check for the region is in the matter raised by the noble Baroness—that is, that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution is quickly closing. We are stressing that in our discussions with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It is in their interests, as it is in ours, for there to be a negotiated solution. We are also stressing that in our discussions with the United States. That is why we think that, at this stage, it would be better to encourage the Palestinian authorities to move down the path of a settled solution as opposed to a vote. We have also made it clear that we have not made a decision in relation to that vote, and whatever decisions are taken are not permanent decisions.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I am slightly surprised at the tone of the Statement. It seems to imply that the United Kingdom Government have ruled out support for a UN vote and yet, on the same hand, the noble Baroness said that she thinks there is only about a year left in the peace process. Does that mean that if the Palestinians come to us at the end of a year and ask for our support, we will give them a positive assurance that we will support them? Hoping against hope for talks to result in a peace process may well be overoptimistic. On Syria, we heard on 15 November that the Security Council was looking at options and I notice that a stabilising response team is now going to be deployed to the region. Can the noble Baroness assure the House that if further materiel is given to the Syrian coalition forces, all safeguards will be put in place to ensure that it does not get into the wrong hands?

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, yes, I can absolutely give my noble friend an assurance on the second part of her question: these matters are being looked at extremely carefully. That is why we have a stepped approach in relation to support. I can assure my noble friend that these are ongoing discussions. The immediate crisis is at the forefront of our minds and it must be dealt with now. I can assure her that the decision on the United Nations General Assembly vote has not been taken. We are using our relationships and all efforts to make sure that the ultimate aim of a negotiated two-state solution is achieved, and we keep reminding people of the best way of achieving that.

EU: UK Balance of Trade

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, I think that there are a number of assumptions in my noble friend’s question. I know that he has devoted many years to this subject, but there is an assumption that trade deficits are in themselves bad. We run trade deficits with some countries and trade surpluses with others. Running trade deficits and trade surpluses is the basis of free markets. I am sure that my noble friend would support that. On negotiations, I would say that there are many benefits to being a member of the European Union, so simply to assess the strength of that relationship on the basis of our trade figures is not the correct way forward.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, irrespective of how you interpret the data, which are contested, according to the Office for National Statistics, since the 1980s the UK’s bilateral trade with EU member states has more than trebled, while according to UKTI and the UN, the UK is the number one destination for inward investment? Those are all things that we should be extremely proud of in terms of our relations with EU member states.