House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, knows well enough that I am not always in tune with my party. No, I am opposed to a directly elected House. The House that I was most proud to be a Member of—it may offend some people here—was the House of Commons. The one thing I did not want—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

Does the noble Lord agree that, although one would have a lot of sympathy for his ejection at 3 am from the other place, that was part of the contract? It is part of what being a democratically elected Member is, which is very different from having an arrangement here about which many reassurances were given. This is not to say that I am taking a partisan position on this—I have not decided, which is why I am listening to the debate very carefully—but there is a profound difference.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Of course there is a profound difference. I was not pretending it was an identical comparison, but there is no difference in the sense that, when you are chucked out of Parliament, you are not too thrilled about it. That is the way I can best describe it.

The 34 hereditary Peers who have been here throughout since 1999 have had a pretty good innings. I have a list here, which I will not read out, of the length of service of Members of this House. The top 19 are all hereditary Peers, who have all served more than 40 years in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, sitting there, has served 62 years. It is not a bad innings.

Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Ongoing breaches of that agreement have been registered with the United Nations. As I have said, one of the biggest consequences of those was the United Kingdom Government’s actions in facilitating BNOs being able to come to this country—a very successful operation, on which I congratulate the previous Government. It was the right decision. It certainly annoyed the Chinese Communist Party, which saw it as a breach of the agreement, whereas it was a reaction to its ongoing breaches of the agreement. We are taking every possible step to raise our concerns about human rights violations, not only the introduction of the security legislation in Hong Kong but the ongoing breaches of human rights in other parts of China.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that there are consequences for not upholding international law and not sticking by treaty obligations? I remind him that our capitulation in the light of the violation of the Budapest memorandum vis-à-vis Ukraine led to certain inevitable actions. I suggest to him that exactly the same may happen if the Government appear to be so relaxed about signing up only to bits of international law that they rather like and not enforcing obligations internationally elsewhere, particularly as a UN Security Council member.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I totally refute the noble Baroness’s suggestion that we are not being robust in our response in defending human rights. The actions of the United Kingdom Government have been very clear. I repeat that the biggest response to the introduction of this law in Hong Kong was the facilitation of BNOs coming here, and we are making the strongest possible representations. I also refute the idea that we have not used sanctions; we have, and I could go into examples of upholding international humanitarian law and human rights. I do not accept for one moment that we failed to show a robust response. But we are living in a global world and we face global challenges, not least as one of the biggest economies in the world. We have to co-operate with China to address our biggest threat, which is climate change. That is what I hear from people when I attend international fora. I refute the noble Baroness’s suggestion.

Syria

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Let me make it clear to the right reverend Prelate that the Home Office has temporarily paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims while we assess the current situation. The vast majority were fleeing the Assad regime, but we do not know what will replace it at the moment, so there is no way of judging an asylum claim and whether it is safe for someone to return. That is why we have paused the decisions. We have not stopped the process; applications are being considered. But we will keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so that we can respond to emerging issues.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I hear what the Minister has said about proscription or de-proscription. However, as someone from a Muslim background who has, alas, too much familiarity with the travails of the Middle East over decades, can I urge the Minister, in making those judgments, to disaggregate between terrorism and Islamism? We know that HTS now proclaims to be Islamist rather than belonging to the terrorist family from which it came, but it is profoundly important in making these judgments to be clear that Syria is not going to turn into a secular liberal democracy overnight—it would be the first Muslim country in the Middle East to do so if it did—but will require engagement in the longer term. That engagement must be based not on religious grounds but on clear security grounds.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The important thing to stress, as I said earlier, reflecting the Secretary-General’s comments, is that it is for the Syrians to determine their own Government. Turning to HTS, it is important to repeat that we will judge HTS by its actions and continue to monitor closely how it and other parties in this conflict treat all civilians in all areas under their control. As the US special envoy said, we want an inclusive transition process and that is something that we will be monitoring extremely closely.