Saudi Arabia: Executions

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of Saudi Arabia regarding the executions of political activists.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, the British Government are firmly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and in every country. We have expressed our concern to the Saudi authorities, most recently during my honourable friend Tobias Ellwood’s visit to Riyadh on 25 January—last week. The British Government do not shy away from raising legitimate human rights concerns, but we believe that we will be more successful discussing cases privately with Saudi Arabia than criticising it publicly.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, it is widely reported that in King Salman’s first year of office, 2015, Saudi Arabia executed more people than in any of the previous 20 years. Many of those people were executed for political dissent. The last time we discussed this, on 13 January, the noble Baroness was urged from all sides of this House to express those concerns to the Saudi Government. She has just told us that they have done so. What was the Saudi Government’s response, and will they distinguish between political dissent and other crimes?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, during his visit, Tobias Ellwood had meetings with members of the National Society for Human Rights, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and members of the Shura Council. He also met advisers, so he covered a wide variety of people with whom he could have this conversation. Naturally, as I explained in my Answer, we prefer to make our points in a private environment. The Saudi Arabian Government and others in Saudi Arabia are clear that we will not stop coming forward with our views on each and every case where someone has been arrested and faces the death penalty.

Saudi Arabia: Executions

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, throughout my time at the Foreign Office, I have made it clear on every possible occasion the strength of feeling that the Government have about the death penalty. It is wrong in principle and wrong in practice. Clearly, the noble Lord and I agree on that. There is a concern that any changes in behaviour by any country in the region may have a destabilising effect on the important discussions to which the noble Lord rightly alluded. We understand from both Iran and Saudi Arabia that they expect to continue to support the negotiations on Syria.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness accepts that Saudi Arabia not only uses the death penalty but uses it against political prisoners, which is a significant point. It also wages illegal wars, as with its neighbour Yemen, and supports jihadi groups in Syria. Will she tell the House how she thinks that the UK Government supporting and collaborating with it to get it elected to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations advances international peace and security or the UK’s interests? Does it advance human rights?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, there are at least five questions there. Of course, I am supposed to try to address just two. I will choose perhaps the two most contentious. First, with regard to Yemen, it is not an illegal activity. I remind the noble Baroness that the request for support was made by the legitimate President, President Hadi, to the United Nations Security Council.

Regarding the Human Rights Council, I say now, as I have said throughout, that the matter to which the noble Baroness referred was an uncontested election—I know that that has not got into the media, so many people are not aware of it—and therefore the Saudi Arabian place, by the interesting way in which the Human Rights Council works, was taken because it is a member of the Asian group.

Syria

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the political situation in Syria.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, the war in Syria is in its fifth year. The UN estimates 200,000 dead, 100,000 injured and 10 million displaced. The whole of the Middle East is riven by sectarianism and destabilised by global jihad. The borders of the Levant are in a state of flux. It is tempting to ask how we got here; what could we have done to avert this ongoing crisis? However, this is merely a Short Debate so I will not test the patience of the House.

Let me lay out how the situation has evolved since we last debated the Middle East earlier this year. We have not seen a rout of ISIL; we have not seen a consolidation of the opposition forces around the Syrian national coalition, and we have not seen a reduction in interventions by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the side of the Islamists, and Iran, Russia and Lebanon for Assad.

What of the instability it is causing around the world? We know that the emergence of ISIL in control of its own territory is a pull factor for global jihadis. It is not just the threat from returning jihadis which should concern us, but also that ISIL is attracting allegiance from across various jihadi groups in the Muslim world. What started as a civil war has now become a struggle for the heart of Islam. It has become a geopolitical struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. With the number of external factors of different ideological positions, it is several wars. It is a Shia/Sunni war, but it is also a Sunni/Sunni war. Its reach is global, as its resolution will impact on Islam and modernity well into the future.

My question for Her Majesty’s Government is simply this: where do the Government see this taking us and our interests in the maintenance of international peace and security—the obligation that permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council imposes on us? What is their assessment of what the end will look like? In fact, do they actually have a strategic vision for the map of the Middle East when this is all said and done? Are they considering the UK’s interests with a view to the very real possibility that we may have to recalibrate our alliances quite substantially at the end of this?

Let me suggest a few possible options we might need to consider. I urge the Government not to let the war against ISIL divert their focus from trying to get peace even in a rump Syria. Defeating ISIL cannot be done without peace in what remains of Syria. A lot of hope is placed on Iran and the potential success of the P3+3 talks culminating on 30 June. I share that hope for a successful outcome. While we hope that once Iran is inside the tent, so to speak, it will exert a more positive influence on Syria, we should not underestimate the difficulty in getting the moderate opposition—I am referring to the non al-Qaeda, non Jabhat al-Nusra and non Islamic State groupings—into peace talks.

We also have to consider the influence that Russia can bring to bear on Syria. I have been as vocal a critic of President Putin’s Russia as anyone in this House but I acknowledge that, despite their role in Crimea and Ukraine, we need the Russians to use what leverage they have with the Assad regime. It will not be a surprise to the House tonight that Russia may have to be Assad’s safe haven, if that is the price of peace in Syria. So my question to the Minister is: to what extent are we working with the US and Russia in trying to find a format for Geneva III? A propos peace talks, the Minister will be aware that the 37 groupings under the aegis of the revolutionary command council recently wrote an open letter to the United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura to say that they would not attend Geneva III, as they saw him as too close to the Assad regime.

While this is clearly unhelpful, the facts on the ground have changed and so must our analysis. From 2011 till 30 August 2013, when the House of Commons decided not to vote for limited intervention against Assad, I was clear that we could not have peace with Assad in situ. However, with the advent of ISIL, and the ongoing support by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey for Islamists—I would go as far as to say support of jihadi groups by those countries—we now have to acknowledge that Assad’s people have to be part of the solution. In that regard, I make no criticism of Staffan de Mistura for seeking to bring the Syrian Government into the talks.

The interview that Bashar al-Assad gave to the US journal Foreign Affairs in March is instructive. Assad gets the fact that all wars end in a political settlement. As for preconditions for talks, he is no longer saying that he will speak only to representative political parties, but in fact makes it clear that he will speak to, in his words, “any political entity” or person. When asked about preconditions, he makes it clear that there will be no conditions. I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that this interview was clearly designed to send a more nuanced and calibrated message than we had from the regime until now.

I urge the Government to work towards talks even if their influence lies only with the secular moderate opposition, such that that exists. Even if we have only incremental gains towards a partial peace, it will signal the beginning of a transition. However, what of a wider strategy? I posed a question about where the pieces would fall in this kaleidoscope. If all we can achieve in Syria is only a partial peace, we must go for that. ISIL will be a feature of both Syria and Iraq as well as the rest of the Muslim world for some time. The caliphate it promotes is evidently attractive to many Muslims, and will continue to be so. In the next decade or so we might have displaced it in the Levant, only to see it emerge in poorly governed spaces in Africa or south Asia.

What is clear is that the ideology that ISIL feeds on has not come out of the blue, despite the protestations of the Saudis, Qataris and those who themselves have supported the propagation of these medieval versions of Islam. If we have a partial peace in Syria and Iraq, do we expect to continue to do business as usual with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states or indeed Turkey? I suspect not. Those countries will have to account for their role in this ugly war to other Muslims.

The Islamic civilisation that existed before the events of 9/11 has disappeared permanently. The Muslim world can see that, hence we have seen the different reactions to the rise of Islamism in different countries. The recent elections in Turkey have provided a little hope that the fightback from modern Muslims has begun. In Egypt the reaction against the Muslim Brotherhood has been less gratifying, however popular those measures might be domestically. No liberal can say that a death sentence against Morsi is a good thing.

However, what is clear from these different developments is that the West—the United Kingdom, the European Union, the US—has no comprehensive strategic vision that can guide us. I urge the Government to start thinking about our interests from a longer-term perspective.

Since I have not used up my time, I take this opportunity to thank all noble Lords who will speak in tonight’s debate and who have stayed late to do so.

Saudi Arabia: Raif Badawi

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords—

United Nations: Secretary-General

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the candidates and process for appointing the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, while the United Kingdom is aware of prospective candidates, we have a policy of not revealing voting intentions in the Secretary-General selection process. We believe that the process would benefit from greater structure and transparency. The UK is therefore supporting moves to set clear deadlines for candidates to declare themselves and for the selection to take place, to encourage greater public scrutiny of candidates and to promote more applications from women.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the UK Government on having moved somewhat in a progressive direction, certainly more than France has, in terms of Matthew Rycroft’s moves in this regard. However, does she agree that a selection process needs to be set up, that we need to do away with regional assignments for the role of Secretary-General and, most importantly, that more than one candidate should go forward to the General Assembly for selection? Does she also agree that after 70 years of male domination, it is time for a female candidate to be put to the General Assembly because international peace and security is far too important to be left to only half the human race?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I agree with that last statement. Certainly, if a job represents the interests of the world, people cannot exclude half the population. It is high time for a woman to lead the United Nations but of course we need credible candidates and it has to be an appointment on merit as well. With regard to having more than one candidate, a General Assembly resolution in 1946 established that it would be desirable for the Security Council to nominate only one candidate. We are at the start of a process where we look for allies around the United Nations to ensure that the next process is transparent and fair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it is always difficult for an unelected House to talk about trying to extend the elected terms of others, so at the moment we want to concentrate on providing a process that is transparent and fair while encouraging women to feel that they should come forward. However, I should say that our process of policy-making on this was given a very good helping hand by the views put forward in this House earlier this year, and we should take credit for that.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, since there is still a second, can I press the Minister to say whether she believes that the inclusion of Australia and New Zealand in the western European bloc—in other words in the category of western Europe—is appropriate, given that apparently one of the strong female contenders is from New Zealand?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the United Nations has its own way of defining regions but I come back to my earlier point that regional rotation is not of itself the first port of call. Naturally, I would never seek to comment on particular candidates.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to the foreign affairs and international defence portfolios. It will be a busy time for him, given the state of the world as we find it, but I am sure that he will bring his usual verve to the Dispatch Box. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Anelay on coming back to this brief. Foreign affairs always benefits from a level of continuity, but I have to say that I found her to be an exceptional colleague, and I put on record my thanks to her for the many years that we worked together. I know that I speak for many noble Lords in this House when I say that across the Chamber we appreciated her initiative of having an informal advisory group of Peers, who were able to speak candidly to experts in the Foreign Office and other experts and explore foreign policy below the Dispatch Box-level. I hope that that practice will continue, because we very much appreciated it over the period we had it.

I cannot but say what a magisterial maiden speech we heard from my other friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic. Over the past five years she was the Foreign Secretary’s emissary—that is the word I would use—to the Liberal Democrats, and she did a great job of keeping harmony in the coalition’s foreign affairs team. We had a few disruptions over the European Union and the endless referendums that were proposed, but she was incredibly diplomatic and really helpful, and represented the very best of cross-party working that is achievable in this House.

I should say to her that I came here as a migrant as well—an economic migrant, in more benign circumstances than she did, and in the 1970s, some years before she did. I can only echo what she said about the fairness, tolerance and decency that those of us who arrive here find in this country. The two greatest privileges of my time in this country have been the pursuit of citizenship, which I obtained through naturalisation, and membership of this House. It is a privilege to reflect on that, having heard her express similar sentiments today.

I turn to the two significant themes running through this debate—and I will be very brief. First, on the Middle East, one of the reasons we have failed to think through an effective long-term vision of our interests in the Middle East is that, as several noble Lords have mentioned, our diplomacy was constrained by the most ill-advised appointment of modern international relations: that of Mr Blair as the Quartet representative. It was bound to fail because of who he was—we have heard much about who people are, and their backgrounds—and because of the narrowness of his remit, and that narrowness was designated as such because of who he was.

The second major flaw in our Middle East strategy is the lack of the publication of the Chilcot inquiry. It was the Liberal Democrats in 2009 who said to the then Labour Government that an inquiry of that scope and ambition could not successfully take place with any speed at all. I argued in this Chamber that we needed to have a two-part inquiry. Had we done so, now—some six years later—we might have had some method of ascertaining what our strategy should be towards the cauldron which the Middle East has now become. Alas, it was not to be.

The Queen’s Speech has also spoken about Britain’s role in the stability of the Middle East. I say to the Government that it will be on their watch in 2017 that we will have the centenary of the Balfour Declaration—100 years of the slow and painful erosion of the rights of those living in Palestine. I can only echo the comments of my noble friends Lord Alderdice, Lord Ashdown and others in their analysis of what damage is being done to our reputation as a UN Security Council permanent member by hitching ourselves to the US’s coat-tails in not awarding recognition to a Palestinian state. It is nearly 100 years since our attempts to help one people resulted in such palpable injustice to another, and that must weigh on our contribution to what can no longer be described as a peace process.

The other aspect of our lack of strategic depth was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Baglan, and a few other speakers in this debate, and that is the strategic instability that we are seeing in Sino-US rivalry in Asia. The era of Deng Xiaoping’s advice to the Chinese people to hide their light and bide their time is over. It was Henry Kissinger who, in writing about the rise of US power in the late 19th century, said:

“No nation has ever experienced such an increase in its power without seeking to translate it into global influence”.

What we are seeing in the rise of China and the consequent geopolitical upheaval will affect us all. This will not be a far-away country of which we know nothing and from which we can remain detached.

In 2013, the announcement of an air defence identification zone in the East China Sea was an attempt to “control” rather than merely “influence”. We now understand that China wishes to extend it to the South China Sea. Alongside this, we have Chinese attempts to reinterpret the legal understanding of national exclusive economic zones. So, while the general legal understanding is that international freedom of navigation is guaranteed within the 200 nautical miles that countries identify as their exclusive economic zones, we have attempts by China to redefine this in the South China Sea, where China has numerous territorial disputes with its neighbours and wishes to “control” freedom of military navigation.

China’s fear of US intrusiveness may well be justified but my point is that miscalculations and misunderstandings have the potential to create conflict. We, as a permanent member of the Security Council, cannot stay aloof from this. Therefore, in setting a strategy, it is incumbent on the Government to create a national understanding of the meaning of security beyond the economic sphere. In doing so, they need to start a national conversation about security having costs—costs that sometimes entail sacrifices in other areas, be they health, education or even the national religion of the United Kingdom, the NHS.

Yet beyond expert debates in this House and in the outer reaches of Whitehall, the debate about longer-term changes to the international order has barely started. As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. It is the role of government to be vigilant to that tune and to prepare the country for it.

Israel: Elections

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I welcome the narrative that the noble Baroness has set out. We are in close consultation with international partners, including the US, EU and Arab states, on how we should encourage both parties to make progress towards peace. The UK has already led EU efforts to set out a package of unprecedented support that Europe would offer both parties in the event of a final status agreement. That offer is still on the table. Through the Arab peace initiative, Arab states have offered Israel the normalisation of relations in the event of a comprehensive peace agreement. That signals the benefits that peace would bring to the entire region. It is important that both Netanyahu and the Palestinians understand the serious proposals on offer and take them up.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that now may be the time to bring the United Nations back in? What discussions have the Government had with other EU Governments about a framework resolution on a peace settlement through the UN Security Council now that the United States is recalibrating its position?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am sure these matters will continue to be discussed within the United Nations. In particular, of course, we are still awaiting the opportunity to see what the commission of inquiry into Israel produces in its report. We are disappointed that Israel did not allow the commission access to specific places. As to EU co-operation, currently discussions are going ahead in the EU about what further sanctions might be required if progress on the peace initiative is not made.

G20: Turkish Presidency

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we are at the forefront of implementing a series of commitments. For example, on anti-corruption the UK Anti-Corruption Plan published in December 2014 clearly sets out more than 60 actions for tackling corruption domestically and internationally. My second example is the automatic exchange of tax information, of which the UK is an early implementer, with the first exchange expected in 2017.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend mentioned previous G20 communiqués so she will be familiar with the November communiqué, which said that tackling infrastructure shortfalls is,

“crucial to lifting growth, job creation and productivity”.

In that case, what conversations have taken place with the United States over the very welcome UK application to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which I understand has been less than enthusiastically received by the US?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it is a matter of discussion with the United States. Our whole focus with regard to the G20 is the implementation of previous commitments. This is one and we will continue that discussion. I know, for example, that at Lough Erne 1,000 commitments were made. Since this is the forum which has a prime focus on achieving international consensus on economic matters, we have to work for that consensus.

BBC: Russian Language Programming

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, that is very much a matter for the BBC Trust to determine. The House will know that, following the change in funding made last year, the BBC is now funded directly from licence fee payers. At that stage it was a discussion about funding and the BBC has increased the funding that has gone to the BBC World Service—the subject of this Question—beyond that which originally applied to it. There will be a review of the BBC charter next year. The noble Lord makes a very valid point: in this changing world of communications, with changing platforms on which one can receive news and language programmes, we all need to consider very carefully which expertise is appropriate and how we may attract it.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend has mentioned the commercial impetus in the dialogue conducted between the Foreign Office and the BBC board. Given the importance of the strategic situation in Russia, whereby Russian speakers need access to objective and historical truth, have the Government proposed to the BBC board that they would be prepared to put in some funding for this vital work that is in our strategic interests?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I repeat that it is for the BBC World Service board to come to the Government with strategic proposals, but my noble friend asks a very proper question about what happens with regard to balanced and trustworthy information. That is the kind of information that the BBC provides. We are building relationships with and supporting the Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and independent Ukrainian journalists. We are funding via a conflict pool BBC Media Action—a charity under the BBC’s auspices—giving £200,000 to train Ukrainian producers and directors, and to produce a drama handling conflict issues sensitively for both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking audiences. That will be broadcast on Ukraine’s state TV channel.

Burma: Policing of Demonstrations

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and her courage over so many years in the work that she has done in Burma. It is a balance, whereby one needs, as she said in her report, to recognise progress but to be ever cautious about the huge amount of work yet to be done. I read her report with interest. The stories of the community health workers were very touching indeed.

The Burmese Government have released political prisoners, discharged child soldiers—not all of them—ratified the Biological Weapons Convention and endorsed the declaration to end sexual violence in conflict, but we have seen an increase in the number of political prisoners, conflict in Kachin and in Shan, arrests of journalists and continued discrimination in Rakhine state. I shall be discussing these immediately after Questions with the United Nations special rapporteur, Yanghee Lee.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, as recently as November when I met Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, her main point for the West was that we must not become complacent that the constitutional reform process is sufficient. With elections coming up in November, she is extremely concerned that there is a regression on the part of the military. That is what we have seen, in terms of the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock. Could the Minister tell the House what meetings the Government are having with the military Government to press them to bring about constitutional reform—it was meant to be announced but has not been yet—so that they can embed that before the election period begins?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, my right honourable friend Hugo Swire visited Burma last year. He has met representatives of the Burmese Government and discussed the range of progress that the Burmese Government need to make. As my noble friend said, the elections this year are critical for Burma. It is the first time that Burma has had the opportunity to have democratic elections and make real progress. It must not let that slip.