Egypt

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, can my noble friend reassure the House about the transportation of British nationals? I assume that his figure of 10,000 includes dual nationals. Can other European carriers bring out British nationals, should British carriers be unable to accommodate the number who might need airlifting out of Cairo?

On a broader point, the United Kingdom does not have a good history in the Middle East. This situation, grave as it is, provides us with an opportunity to be on the right side of history. Does my noble friend agree that comments by senior British statesmen in the Middle East that stability is perhaps to be traded for pluralism and democracy are unhelpful, and that, although stability is deeply important in that volatile part of the world, pluralism is equally so? It does not behove our Government to take a position whereby we do not seek to uphold the wishes of the people and instead somehow trade off a peace process that is going nowhere with a desire for a false state of stability?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I know what my noble friend is getting at, but I think that that is a false polarity. Something that I have learnt—in particular, in my dealings with the Commonwealth, which does not really come into this issue—is that democracy, the rule of law and good governance are the foundations of stability, investment, jobs and trade expansion. Where those things are not adhered to, or at least there is no trend towards them, problems arise that lead to challenges—not in every country; we can think of exceptions to that generalisation, but that is the scene. I do not think that the pattern of differentiation hinted at in my noble friend's remarks is entirely justified.

The certain and central truth is in my noble friend’s other observation that the UK has a long history in the area, not all of it bad. I am always interested in the way in which many countries with which we might have had bad relations in the past are extremely pro this country—I am thinking of countries slightly further to the east in the Gulf—and are constantly asking for stronger renewed links with the United Kingdom. Some of them have recently been saying to me, “Where is the United Kingdom? Please will you come back?”, so not all the history has been bad, although some of it has been very awkward indeed. The history of our relations with Egypt has had its good moments and its terrible moments over the past century, and certainly for the past 40 or 50 years, as we all vividly remember.

As to the practical matter of routes to the airport and getting nationals out, we are watching that carefully. If it were necessary to think in terms of special charters and so on, we would move immediately, but so far we are finding that the commercial airlines, including British and some non-British airlines, have capacity. The airport is operating again today better than it was and, most importantly, the routes to Cairo airport are clear and properly guarded in a way that it was feared they were not the day before yesterday and yesterday. The situation can change at any time, but at the moment it looks a little better. I hope that that is helpful to my noble friend.

BBC World Service

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I really cannot comment on the noble Lord’s last point because the administrators of the BBC World Service are serious about operating their budget in a new and more effective way within the limits that have been imposed upon them. However, I should like to lift the noble Lord out of his depression because I believe that he is reading too much into the gloom and pessimism around this. I know that he understands the position because he knows all about these things, but I am not sure that he is accepting enough of the new possibilities and the new patterns. I mentioned that this Statement, among other things within the constrained budget, includes some new services, including TV programming in Urdu, in sub-Saharan Africa and in Hindi to be provided by local partners. No doubt other ideas and innovations are also in the pipeline which we will learn about in due course. I have also mentioned that funds are being found to assist the BBC World Service in its immediate pension deficit, which again is an inherited matter although I do not ascribe it to or in any way blame it on the previous Administration.

That said, I think that his words are exaggerated. The very substantial budget over the next three years of the spending round is still a big part of our intentions and expenditure in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. When this joins up with the full BBC in 2014 the programmes will continue in a highly vigorous, effective and modern way. So I just do not accept the reasons for the noble Lord’s pessimism and depression at this time.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I sympathise with my noble friend on the difficult decisions that his department is having to take. At the time I was growing up in a developing country, the only access to free and impartial reporting was through the BBC World Service. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to extend sympathy in this regard other than to say that we are living in difficult times. My questions will be brief because many noble Lords want to come in.

Has the Foreign Secretary considered the proposal put forward in the briefing provided to noble Lords today by Mr Peter Horrocks which suggests that part of the DfID budget might be extended to cover some of the shortfall? DfID has very adequate resources, so it seems to make sense that some of its resources, particularly those dedicated to stability and conflict, should be used for the Urdu language programming and so on.

There is some confusion in the briefing provided by Mr Horrocks apropos the Statement. Can my noble friend confirm that BBC audiences have been falling in any event due to technological changes and the other factors he mentioned? Is it accurate to say that last year the audience was 180 million, which was down 9 million on the previous year, 2009? If he can confirm that, some noble Lords might understand that when audiences are falling because of new technologies, it is inevitable that some of the decisions that are taken will reflect that.

Finally, the Foreign Secretary’s Statement says that £10 million per annum will be dedicated to priority areas such as TV programming in Urdu whereas the BBC briefing suggests that that will not be the case and that new money will have to be found for programming in Urdu.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I find it difficult to comment on my noble friend’s last point. If that is what she has read in the BBC briefing, which I have not seen, it would appear not to coincide with the position which is as I have stated it. It is not argumentation or opinion, it is fact. I shall have to look into this because there seems to be some misinterpretation here.

My noble friend is absolutely right about falling audiences. This is so because we are moving into a different international landscape in which people’s listening habits are changing. The position of radio in all societies across the world is changing, and certainly in my lifetime it has changed in our society absolutely fundamentally. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, and I both mentioned the fact that short-wave systems are just not operating in the way they did in the past, and the world is turning to online systems. Every morning some 2 billion people open the world wide web. That is almost a third of the entire population of the world. We have to adjust to these new realities.

My noble friend’s first point was very interesting. A certain amount of the expenditure on the World Service is classified as “ODAable”—I think that is the jargon. In other words, it is part of our overseas development budget. I do not want to encourage her that there is more flexibility in that area to be exploited at the moment, but obviously we keep in close touch with DfID on this matter and we will continue to do so. If resources can be mobilised to adapt to a new pattern of soft power projection, of which this is an important part, we will certainly look for them and I hope we will find them.

Tunisia

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I hope, as we must all hope, that the lessons will be learnt. They are fascinating lessons, and some very profound observations have been made. The emergence of the food shortage issue and its impact on political stability in certain societies is in itself a vast issue that relates to other aspects of crops for biological use, biofuel, and so on. That has all kinds of impacts on world food prices, which at the moment are rising very fast.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, with his considerable experience of foreign affairs in the other place and here, for his kind words of congratulation. The Foreign Office to which I, as noble Lords will know, am relatively new, has demonstrated that in a situation of this kind, precise timing is always difficult to anticipate. However, the Foreign Office has acted with extreme speed, along with great help from ABTA and the commercial operators, who have done remarkably well in evacuating 3,000 tourists from the country at such enormous speed.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Does my noble friend agree that although the formation of a more inclusive Government is to be welcomed, it is very limited in its inclusion? The Islamist parties, for better or for worse, have been left out of it, as have the liberals. Does he agree that in order to have a pluralistic framework, which is what the people want now, all parties should be invited to come on board? Can he assure the House that the EU will monitor those elections?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

It is early days to give a definite current on the last point, but that seems utterly sensible. As to the precise balance and formation of a new Government, the delicate, fragile gain for the moment is that a new Government are being formed and announced. Exactly what balance they should have and which parties should be included is a very difficult matter for those outside Tunisia to intervene on at the moment. All that we can do is offer our support and give them our good wishes and blessing as fast as we can, so that government rather than chaos emerges out of the present street violence and disorder.

EU: Hungarian Presidency

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Baroness is quite right to raise this concern about the Roma. We want to encourage the presidency to focus on practical co-operation between member states. Indeed, we have been working on practical co-operation ourselves with Romania on this issue. The Hungarian presidency is drawing up a framework strategy on Roma inclusion. We have strong and effective legislation ourselves and policies to tackle racial discrimination and to promote race equality, so we would not be in favour of further legislation, but very detailed practical co-operation to meet this particular minority problem is certainly very much at the top of the agenda.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Does my noble friend agree that while Hungary’s internal problems and more authoritarian stance are indeed to be regretted, one of the principal problems facing the eurozone is the financial stability of countries such as Portugal and Belgium? Can he assure the House that we will take an active interest in ensuring that financial stability remains the defining issue that this presidency deals with rather than Mr Orbán’s own political posturing?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Of course, we are a major financial power and we have a major interest in financial stability not merely in our region but at a global level, so these matters are bound to be at the top of the agenda. However, as I stated earlier, our actions will be governed—certainly after 2013—by our voluntary wish to move or not move in the direction of financial support. Before 2013, we are somewhat caught up in the existing mechanisms, but they will be used with the greatest care and discretion.

Africa: Ivory Coast

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union about the results of the presidential election in the Ivory Coast.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government have had extensive contact with key international partners in the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and the west African regional security body ECOWAS in attempts to forestall conflict in the Côte d’Ivoire, following the disputed presidential election. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary agreed with other EU Foreign Ministers on 16 December that the EU would adopt restrictive measures against those obstructing the peace process, including Laurent Gbagbo.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but I fear that the EU’s limited sanctions and travel restrictions will not go quite far enough. Not only has Laurent Gbagbo stolen the election from Dr Ouattara, but he has mobilised paramilitary troops, and it has been discovered that nearly 1,000 people are missing. Does the noble Lord agree that the international community now faces a potential Srebrenica moment, whereby the UN may need to withdraw under fire and atrocities will be committed on a large scale? Will he suggest to his right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary that ECOWAS, and potentially UN peacekeeping troops from Liberia, need to be mobilised to intervene in a more substantive manner than mere sanctions?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend may well be right to say that pressures do not go far enough. Indeed, the EU is now moving on from the proposed targeted travel ban, which includes Mr Gbagbo, his wives and others associated with him, and is considering much more targeted sanctions and freezing assets. On the EU side, more proposals are being put forward, with the active involvement of British officials and colleagues.

At the UN level, the Security Council has expressed very deep concern. There are further problems about trying to get UN sanctions in place, not least because it is supposed that some countries, certainly among the permanent five members of the Security Council, would oppose them. However, the United Nations has rightly insisted, with our full support, that the UN operation in the Côte d’Ivoire—the so-called UNOCI—stays there, despite the fact that ex-President Gbagbo has insisted that it goes. UNOCI is embedded there; it intends to stay there and does not intend to leave. Further pressures will certainly be considered and may well be necessary.

As for Liberia and Senegal becoming involved in other areas, there are difficulties and it is not quite clear what their remit would be. For the moment, the French troops are still there, although they have been told to leave, and the UN troops are there. That is the position at the moment.

European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Partnership and Cooperation Agreement) (Republic of Indonesia) Order 2010

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the order and for the brevity of his presentation, which I shall try to copy. It is good to read a treaty that clearly represents a factor in a good relationship, in this case between the European Union and Indonesia. It includes the sort of good words that you would hope to see in such a treaty, but reading it left me asking what will specifically come out of it, at what pace and through what mechanisms. I wonder whether the Minister could give me some brief insights.

Article 41 of the framework agreement talks about a joint committee that will meet not less than every two years. That does not have a strong sense of urgency about it. The essence of such treaties seems to me to be the rate at which they are taken up and used, with practical steps coming forward, yet in the UK you would expect that to fall to BIS and the FCO, both of which are seeing a reduction in their resources of 25 per cent. However, frankly, the framework has commitments to work between the Community and Indonesia on virtually every area of human activity. Could the Minister comment on what we will do about Article 5, on terrorism? What specific input will the UK make in terms of resources committed to helping Indonesia and ourselves in that extremely important area?

There are two other important areas, one of which is Article 34, on migration. All the people in the world have an interest in humane movement and controls of people, and particularly in the stamping out of the evil of people trafficking. I hope that we will be able to make some contribution to Indonesia in that area. Finally, and probably most significantly, is the whole issue of deafforestation. Indonesia has the second highest rate of deafforestation after Brazil; it is about half that of Brazil but many times greater than any other nation. The Indonesian forests are a key part of the ecology of the planet. Anything that can be done through co-operation with Indonesia to lower the rate of deafforestation has to be good for climate change and needs to be done fairly urgently.

I am interested in how the Minister can illustrate the practical steps that will follow once this treaty comes into force, which we all hope will be quite soon.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

We too welcome this partnership agreement with Indonesia. As the Minister pointed out, it is the largest Muslim country, and this agreement is the first with an ASEAN country so it is very welcome. However—he would expect there to be some howevers in such a comprehensive agreement—there are obviously concerns. First, it is undoubtedly true that Indonesia has made significant progress since 1998 in terms of democratic freedoms and human rights. Multi-party democracy is now established and is increasingly becoming entrenched throughout the country, which is no mean feat given the size of the population and the very different traditions evident there. Nevertheless, the agreement—particularly Article 26—is very weak in terms of human rights. It tries to encompass all the European Union’s interests in that area in 56 words—Article 27, on environment and natural resources, runs to a couple of hundred words; I did not have time to record quite how long it was—words that are at best dressed up as hopeful sentiments. Its second paragraph states that:

“Such cooperation may include … supporting the implementation of the Indonesian National Plan of Action of Human Rights … human rights promotion and education”,

and so on. Those 56 words go on to say:

“The Parties agree that a dialogue between them on this matter would be beneficial”.

This is extremely weak and almost inadequate if it is to be a blueprint for how we approach partnership agreements with other countries, particularly in the Muslim world where there are significant concerns about human rights norms. If this is the first such measure, I dread to think what might happen as we proceed with countries with worse records.

Most human rights organisations agree that abuses by security forces have been especially severe in Aceh and Papua. Freedom House recommends that the two most important steps the Government can take to improve civil liberties are keeping the peace process on track in Aceh and engaging in serious dialogue with local leaders in Papua. The Minister will recall that he was asked to deal with some of these questions only last Thursday, 16 December, as recorded at cols. 726 and 727 of Hansard. He was asked about the inability of foreign journalists to travel in these areas and the lack of any transparent, open media coverage of these conflict situations, despite our having raised these issues at the highest level. This raises suspicions that things may be worse than we might imagine. When asked to say what was the response of the Indonesia Government to the Deputy Prime Minister and the ambassador raising these issues, he replied:

“Not in detail, except that they recognised we have these concerns”.—[Official Report, 16/12/2010; col. 727.]

Given that we are just one of 26 EU countries that have these concerns and were involved in the lead-up to this partnership agreement being agreed on 9 November, and that these ongoing situations constitute extremely severe and serious conflicts with significant loss of life, I should have thought that the EU would be able to take on board that we have rather graver concerns than those set out in Article 26.

Women’s rights are also of considerable concern to us. We understand that at some levels Islamic law is incompatible with civil law and that gender equality is still a long way from being achieved. Therefore, it is not only a matter of our exhorting Indonesia to do better but of using the leverage that we had at the point of signing this agreement to achieve something. Naturally, the agreement is set and we will move forward, but I echo the sentiments of the noble Lord opposite that the proof of the pudding will be in the implementation. A joint committee meeting every two years to discuss articles as weak as the ones that I have described will not create the environment whereby we might achieve great advances in these areas.

Finally, Article 44 on resolving differences allows for a party to opt out,

“except in cases of special urgency”.

Given that we are discussing a country that, even after it embraced democracy, has a record of imposing a state of emergency, it does not instil confidence in one to think that these cases of special urgency will be exceptional. Clearly, we can expect that they would be exceptional in a conflict situation but I hope that, as we go forward with this agreement, we will make representations to the Indonesians that we expect them almost never to be invoked.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and my noble friend Lady Falkner, for their comments on this issue. We are dealing very briefly with a vast range of issues connected to a vast country. I shall first address the acute points made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about the detail. We have the agreements; where is the detail; if I may use the colloquial, where is the beef?

Let me describe to the noble Lord four policy areas for closer co-operation—one, in particular, on which he concentrated—which have been agreed already but which the PCA will boost, reinforce and create a new forum in which we can carry them forward. First, on trade and investment, we will, under the PCA, explore new areas of co-operation, including research and development, and a series of sectoral committees will help to identify opportunities and more rapidly defuse irritants in key sectors of commercial interests, which is always a very valuable asset, because small irritants can turn into great barriers if one is not careful and does not handle them very positively indeed.

Secondly, on environment issues, the climate change question is a shared political priority. As I said earlier, Indonesia is the world's third largest carbon emitter, and we will use the PCA to boost co-operation in key environmentally sensitive areas, such as fisheries and afforestation—which the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, rightly raised. A partnership agreement with Norway earlier this year, which the UK supports, should put in place a framework with Indonesia to reduce deafforestation and degradation rates. I fully accept that a lot more work is needed to make the framework robust. The UK committed in December last year—a year ago—to support the achievement of Indonesia's climate change objectives through a five-year, £50 million programme. That is particularly relevant when it comes to deafforestation. It is likely to include significant partnership with the province and district governments of Papua, where the potential for emission reductions, development gains and the checking of deafforestation is very important.

In answer to the general question about the detail, the third area that is very important for us is education. Indonesia and the EU will seek to boost a co-operation agreement in the education field through existing programmes, such as the Erasmus Mundus scholarship programme, which funds Indonesian students to study in the EU; and through a new initiative, such as educational fairs, co-operation on research and other programmes. That will all be reinforced within the PCA forum.

Fourthly, on the area on which my noble friend Lady Falkner rightly concentrated—although when I say that it is fourth, one could say that it is first, because there is no priority of numbers here—the EU-Indonesian human rights dialogue was launched on 29 June last year. My noble friend rightly observes—she is tireless in her accuracy and her work on this front—that rhetoric and saying where we have got to is not enough, and that a lot more work is required. The dialogues are under way already.

The PCA is reinforcement for what has been raised in the dialogues. The aim is regularly to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern related to human rights, including through annual meetings of senior officials. It is an avenue to discuss issues such as that which we discussed in the Chamber of your Lordships' House only the other day—the situation in West Papua, in which there is a great deal of proper and understandable interest. The next dialogue will be in June next year. Beyond that, the existence of the partnership agreement will provide opportunities for pressing further. My noble friend is quite right that one can aspire, for example, to greater access for journalists to the situation in West Papua, or that human rights issues are investigated. We can aspire to see that appropriate dialogue toward some settlement of the West Papuan scene is progressed. Those are aspirations, but carrying them forward requires the most constant, intimate exchanges based on trust and respect.

We fully support the territorial integrity of Indonesia as a great nation, but obviously, like everyone else, we want to see the West Papua situation resolved and human rights respected wherever possible. We will carry on with the procedures that I described to your Lordships last week of raising the issues. More than that, once the PCA comes into force—of course, it has yet to be approved in the other place—we will have an additional forum in which we can reinforce these views, press them, turn them into real actions and carry them forward.

I thank my noble friend and the noble Lord for their comments. I believe that further engagement of every kind with Indonesia will help us to achieve greater prosperity in our country because of the huge opportunities of a vast, new consumer market, with an estimated 35 million to 40 million people with incomes in the range of the European Union’s average level of income. This is an enormous, ready-made consumer market, which will grow bigger because the total population is many times that.

It is important to strengthen our ties with Indonesia on the security agenda, about which we have not talked much, but which is very important. It is important to do that while supporting all the ongoing work and reforms to further improve the human rights situation and to entrench democracy and the rule of law. I thank noble Lords for their support and ask that they approve this order.

Burma

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think I understood the noble Baroness. Clearly, we have to seek responsible dialogue with the Chinese to ensure that they do not undermine the effect of the sanctions that we are keeping in place and which are having some effect because the generals are complaining bitterly that the sanctions put in place by the US, Australia and the EU are damaging their lifestyle and plans. So we will continue with these sanctions but we must have better co-operation from China and other countries in this matter. If that is what the noble Baroness was arguing for, I am right with her.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the slight shift in the US position, whereby it wishes to have direct negotiations with Burma to build a better relationship in the longer term, will help shift the regional balance of power by making China less capable of making Burma a client state, particularly in terms of ports in the Indian Ocean and strategic shipping?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We are constantly looking at ways of bringing more effective global pressure to bear on this unpleasant regime and its practices. Any developments of this kind need to be measured and calibrated very carefully, but it is the direction in which we should go.

UN: Death Penalty

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her kind words. She is of course second to none in campaigning on this central and very important issue. Yes, I am aware of Mr Shadrake’s book and can confirm that he has been sentenced to six weeks in jail for contempt of court. My colleague, the Minister of State, Jeremy Browne MP, issued a statement on 16 November expressing dismay that Mr Shadrake had been charged, convicted and sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment in Singapore for expressing his personal views on the legal system.

Senior United Kingdom officials have discussed the death penalty with Singapore, most recently in July. The Singaporean authorities are aware that we certainly do not share their views on certain aspects of human rights, but we and the European Union continue to engage with them to encourage them to ratify and implement international human rights agreements and conventions.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the support that 22 Commonwealth countries still have for the death penalty? I note that the Foreign Office strategy document on the abolition of the death penalty makes an issue of the fact that the Government have to work with those countries. Will my noble friend tell us what he is doing to get the Commonwealth countries on board to abolish the death penalty?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

This issue is particularly important to me personally, as of course it is to the Government as a whole. As we have outlined in HMG Strategy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, we are looking to expand that work with the Commonwealth, given the number of Commonwealth countries that retain the death penalty, as my noble friend rightly pointed out. We have funded projects in a number of countries and there has been some success. We successfully challenged the mandatory death penalty in Barbados in 2009 and in Kenya in 2010. Indeed, the Kenya challenge led to the commutation of the sentences of the entire population of 4,000 prisoners being held on death row in 2009. There is some progress, but my noble friend is right to say that this is a very worrying area.

Iran

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Grand Committee

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, for this opportunity. I shall talk about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its relationship with its neighbours, given the limited time. Our interests in the UK are engaged with Iran on numerous fronts. It is a neighbour of Afghanistan and Iraq, countries in which UK forces are deployed, and to Pakistan, where we have ongoing security interests.

Iran’s attempts to acquire a nuclear capability have been an ongoing concern for many years now, and rightly engage the international community. Until the present time, we have pursued a twin-track strategy; successive increases of sanctions against Iran have continued alongside the E3+3 talks. There have been ebbs and flows; there was a positive atmosphere in 2003, when Iran suspended its nuclear programme, but on the whole these days the optimism is gone and we know from successive IAEA inspections and public statements from the regime that Iran’s technological know-how is moving ahead towards highly enriched uranium. Whether that leads towards nuclear weapons capability is probably undisputed; the question remains as to how long that will take.

The question that remains for us is what we are to do. Many of us suspected that Israel was being restrained from launching an attack against Iran’s nuclear sites by the US, but we now hear from reports that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have been actively seeking a military strike against Iran in order, supposedly, to destroy her nuclear capability. I hope the Minister can impress on Israel that this would be a most unhelpful course of action, if that is what she seeks to do. Iranian rhetoric indeed threatens Israel, and President Ahmadinejad’s recurrent statements are deeply provocative. Iran’s support for Hezbollah must be deeply worrying, not least when amply demonstrated through President Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon. But airstrikes will not do away with any of that; indeed, they will aggravate tensions throughout the Middle East.

If we in the international community think that we can sanction strikes against Iran and expect no retaliation, we are naive at best. The Straits of Hormuz would be closed overnight, with worldwide oil prices spiking to unprecedented levels. A hard-won stability in Iraq would be immediately endangered and Iran’s significant influence in Afghanistan would be far from benign. Airstrikes would almost certainly not eradicate Iran’s programme, which is dispersed and well protected, as we understand from intelligence.

I turn to the threat that Iran supposedly poses to its neighbours in the wider Middle East. The 2010 report of the US Director of National Intelligence describes Iran foreign policy in his annual threat assessment, finding that:

“Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran’s security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program”.

That is not an unusual set of priorities for any sovereign Government.

In conclusion, while we abhor these actions, I hope the Minister will reassure us that we will continue to keep our eye on the prize of peace through dialogue and sanctions, rather than allowing the use of force, even if it is by proxy.

UN: Security Council Composition

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is a possibility. The noble Lord was a member of the high-level panel—a very eminent member of a very eminent panel—which put forward various models. We would like to go forward with reform but, as he knows, first, there is resistance from some existing permanent members, who do not want any change at all, and, secondly, there is resistance from another group of members, who are not on the Security Council but who are opposed to any change for other reasons. It is therefore difficult to advance even to the interim arrangements that he so expertly described. Anything that can unblock the system and move forward to a modern and—dare I say?—fit-for-purpose United Nations structure, rather than the one that we inherited from the 1940s, would be a great improvement.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, the British and French Governments declared in 2008 that they would jointly move towards the intermediate arrangements of which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, spoke, but the Foreign Secretary’s speech made no reference to that. I wonder whether the official position of Her Majesty’s Government is that they have abandoned that as a means of moving forward. I am sure that the noble Lord would agree with me that for us to say that Brazil should come in and for the United States to say that India should come in would hardly be a means to getting consensus, as we cherry-pick certain countries.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

No, we have not abandoned that position. We continue to work very closely with the French. We are completely committed to enlarging the Security Council and including India, Brazil, Germany and Japan as permanent members. However, in the absence of agreement, which it would be nice to see, together with France we have suggested the intermediate model, which has already been referred to.