Palestinian Territories

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on obtaining this important debate and on his characteristically forensic analysis. I shall focus on Gaza, which I have visited several times, and on recent events there.

After a decade of blockade, Gaza remains an open-air prison—David Cameron’s description, I think—that was described by the UN as unliveable in. Half this prison population are children, who live without hope, and unemployment is at about 45%. Water is undrinkable and raw sewage pours into the sea. The great majority of people live on humanitarian aid. If they are lucky, they have four hours or so of electricity a day. The head of Israeli military intelligence, Herzl Halevi, has warned his Government that Gaza will “blow up” eventually.

Despite Gaza’s grim situation, the protests around Nakba Day on 15 May were relatively moderate. In so far as any protesters were armed, it was with catapults and stones, some Molotov cocktails, admittedly, and a few flaming kites. At a press conference on 10 May, the Hamas leadership congratulated its personnel on abstaining from gunfire—a rare event. It seems that only one Israeli soldier was injured. On the evidence available, little attempt was made to disperse protesters by non-lethal means such as tear gas or water cannon. In that situation, the Israeli military behaved like people auditioning for a Sam Peckinpah film, killing at least 50 Palestinians and probably more. Estimates vary upwards from 60 to 100 and include about 10 children. Many of those killed were shot in the back while running away or had their hands up. On Israeli intelligence’s own assessment, fewer than half of those killed were said to be, to use its own term, “Hamas militants”—whatever that means.

In addition, it was claimed by Time magazine in its edition of 28 May that,

“Israeli soldiers methodically cut down some 2,700 Palestinians”.

That number has subsequently risen. Some of the victims were children playing football too close to the border and some were health workers. This was not Israel defending its homeland; it was an international atrocity that needs to be investigated by the United Nations. Does the Minister agree that the UN should be involved?

We should not be surprised by this episode, because the IDF have form on the use of disproportionate force. For example, in 2014 another 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli invasion of Gaza, when Israeli deaths were about 50. The truth is that, after 50 years of illegal Israeli occupation, Palestinian lives now have a very low value for many Israelis. To many outsiders, Israeli soldiers look a bit like James Bond and seem to be licensed to kill by their political and military command structures. Those in authority politically know only too well that they face no effective deterrent response from the Governments of the US, the UK, Europe or other Arab countries.

We should perhaps reflect on the views expressed by the late and—by me—lamented Gerald Kaufman MP, who was the son of Polish Jews and whose grandmother was killed by the Nazis. Gerald once described Israel as a “pariah state” requiring the application of economic sanctions. After recent events in Gaza, I think that he had a point. As the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said, the UK Government should now follow Parliament’s lead and recognise a Palestinian state as a response to this latest Israeli outrage.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, there has been a bit of time slippage. I respectfully remind your Lordships that when the Clock shows “4”, the allocated time has expired.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, for his distinguished leadership.

Although I welcome yesterday’s report that our Prime Minister has raised concerns with the Israeli Prime Minister about the state-perpetrated and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces against unarmed women and child protesters, I cannot fathom why the UK Government abstained last month in a crucial vote on the UN Human Rights Council resolution seeking an independent investigation following the killing of an estimated 110 unarmed Palestinian protesters and the injuring of more than 12,000.

The abstention by our Government was utterly unjustified. It was said to be on the basis that the investigation would not include an investigation into the actions of what they referred to as “non-state actors”—Hamas. I find it extraordinary that the Government refuse to accept that the investigation is a direct response to what the UN Security Council refers to as,

“the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians”.

Our Government must surely be aware that such a request for an extension to the terms of the investigation to include Hamas will be seen simply as an irrelevant, politically driven diversion to avoid accountability, and that Britain will be seen only as safeguarding Israel and being devoid of any care for the plight of Palestinian people.

What assessment have our Government made of the implications of failing to challenge such breaches by Israel, not only in terms of international human rights laws and the potential impact on the ever-growing international terrorist threat but in terms of the long-term danger of repression, state-inflicted killings, such as the murder of Razan al-Najjar, and the brutalised generation of young people growing up imprisoned in the appalling inhumane conditions inflicted on every man, woman and child in Gaza?

Does the Minister accept that it is time to stand up to the truth that the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by Israeli forces is morally indefensible—a charge repeatedly made in this House and outside by many, including the former Foreign Office Minister and chairman of the Conservative Party, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, in the aftermath of merciless killings in 2014 by Israeli forces, which left more than 2,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip dead?

Does the Minister accept that the Government’s current position does not stand up to scrutiny in this regard and that it is inconsistent with our values, specifically our utmost commitment to uphold the rule of law, which we rightly advocate at home and internationally? Given that Israel appears on our list of countries with a human rights record “of significant concern”, is it not time for Britain to review its position on selling arms to Israel, which is at odds with our laws and our fundamental British value of protecting innocent citizens globally?

Will the Government condemn outright Israel’s announcement this week that it intends to build 3,900 new illegal-settlement homes on the West Bank? It is worth noting that one of our own Ministers, Sir Alan Duncan, last year claimed that the West Bank settlements were a “wicked cocktail” of illegality and occupation, and that those who supported them should be barred from public office? Do the Government accept Sir Alan Duncan’s advice that only the illegal settlements stand in the way of lasting peace in the Middle East?

Is it not time for our Government to accept that their complicity and silence are wrong, and that continued blind appeasement of Israel is untenable, while we justify our inaction and not calling for sanctions by demonising Hamas, which has a democratic mandate, whether we like it or not? Will the Minister accept the legitimate right of occupied Palestinians to protest and to demand an end to the crippling Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade of Gaza?

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I gave an indication to your Lordships that there is now a serious time slippage. I ask noble Lords to please adhere to the time limit of four minutes, which has now expired.

Sudan and South Sudan

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, the dinner break business is down at least one speaker—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury has scratched—and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, may be detained in getting here. That means that speeches can be slightly extended, but please show due balance and understanding and do not go over the top. Six minutes, or a little more, will be perfectly all right.

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who are contributing to this debate on two countries where people are suffering so much, but for very different reasons.

I begin by focusing on Sudan because through my small NGO, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, or HART, we work with local partners who can provide information not readily available, especially in South Kordofan’s Nuba mountains and Blue Nile state, known as the Two Areas. I visited the Nuba mountains earlier this year and witnessed the destruction perpetrated by the GOS—Government of Sudan—armed forces, including the destruction of homes, in which many civilians were killed, a school and the office of the local commissioner. I climbed for two and a half hours up a mountain to visit civilians forced to flee their homes by GOS military offensives and live in caves with deadly snakes. I listened to many people who described their anguish including a father, five of whose children had been burned alive when a bomb from a GOS Antonov set the hut ablaze. His sixth child, whom I met, is suffering from burns and mental trauma. I also met a girl who survived a cobra bite; most do not.

Where fighting has subsided, the humanitarian situation in the Two Areas continues to deteriorate: 23.9% of children suffer from acute malnutrition and 8.4% from severe malnutrition, increasing the risk of child mortality. Overall, stunting rates are a staggering 38.3% with severe stunting at 14.7%, creating a high risk of physical and mental developmental disorders. GOS troops still occupy vast tracts of ancestral farmland, displacing a substantial proportion of the population. Farmers who plant in these areas risk losing their lives or crops. Many villages remain ghost towns, as the 2016 offensive forced civilians to flee to the mountains. In many places I have seen, schools, churches and markets remain in rubble and people still live with the inherent fear of further attacks by the GOS. Episodic attacks continue. For example, on 10 October a long-range missile was fired from Dilling into Hejerat village and, according to local monitors, a significant amount of houses, farms and pastoral land have been destroyed by fire along front lines in South Kordofan.

In Blue Nile, 39% of households had reached levels of severe food insecurity in July and 11% are at the highest possible level of household hunger. Those numbers are expected to rise. There are also acute health problems. For example, there was concern over the spread of acute watery diarrhoea just north of the border and going into Blue Nile, where such few clinics as there are have no drugs to treat this condition. The internal SPLA-North conflict in Blue Nile ceased in October, allowing relatively free movement of civilians and goods. However, tensions remain high as the two SPLA-North factions have shown no signs of reconciliation. There is therefore an urgent need for initiatives to bring an end to this conflict, which has undermined the planting of crops and will lead to even more severe food insecurity in coming months. My small NGO, HART, has been one of very few NGOs enabling aid to be taken into Blue Nile. May I again—I have done this before—request that Her Majesty’s Government increase efforts to allow cross-border aid to reach these people? I appreciate the political complexities, but those heighten the need for an emergency response by the international community to fulfil the mandates to provide protection for vulnerable civilians.

I do not have time to discuss Darfur, where GOS aggression continues, but much of that aggression is well reported. I turn briefly to examples of concern elsewhere in Sudan. On 6 December, Sudan’s security forces or their apparatus kidnapped Mr Rudwan Dawod, a leading member of the Sudanese Congress Party, an adviser to the “Sudan of the Future” campaign—SoF—and a well-known human rights defender. He has been taken to an unknown place after he showed solidarity with the people of Elgiraif, who are struggling to protect their land as the GOS has been illegally confiscating lands from indigenous people to give to so-called foreign investors. Several other supporters of the SoF campaign have also been arrested. Will Her Majesty’s Government urge the Government of Sudan to release these civilians immediately and stress that President Omar al-Bashir will be held responsible if they are subjected to torture or any other harm? Is the UK embassy in Khartoum aware of the GOS policy of land confiscation from Sudanese civilians and has it made representations to the GOS regarding this serious violation of human rights?

A recent report by Global Justice Now shows the UK providing £400,000 from CSSF funds to strengthen the capacity of the Sudanese armed forces. Is this accurate and, if so, what is the justification for this support? Regarding all discussions with GOS, especially in the context of the Sudan strategic dialogue and the conditions for lifting sanctions, will Her Majesty’s Government ensure that there will be a thorough, accurate monitoring of compliance and genuine, demonstrable proof of the meeting of these conditions for the lifting of sanctions?

I turn briefly to South Sudan, where the UK has an important role as the second-largest bilateral donor and a member of the troika. I offer a brief overview of the situation there nationwide: 7.5 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, with 6 million severely food insecure; 1.8 million have fled to neighbouring countries, more than 85% of whom are women and children; there are 2 million displaced internally. Disease outbreaks, including cholera, kala-azar and measles, along with more than 2 million cases of malaria, were reported between January and November 2016, with at least 246 deaths from cholera since June 2016. More than 1.17 million children aged three to 18 have lost access to education due to conflict and displacement, while about 31% of schools have suffered attacks. An adolescent girl is three times more likely to die in childbirth than to complete primary school and 76% of school-aged girls are not in school.

Our HART partner, Archbishop Moses Deng Bol, sent this update from Wau in Bahr el-Ghazal. He said:

“The most pressing issues in South Sudan are as follows: Insecurity has increased all over South Sudan. Dr Riek’s rebel movement the SPLM-IO is still fighting inside South Sudan and still considers him as its leader. More rebel groups have also been formed, including the National Salvation Front. As a result of the insecurity and hunger caused by the wars, thousands of civilians are still crossing the borders daily. More than 2 million people are now internally displaced in IDP Camps. New camps are being established, including one on the outskirts of Wau town and hundreds of civilians are entering the camp daily. The UN has stated that over 6 million people will be in need of food assistance in the coming year. The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has initiated a process known as High Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) to try to revitalize the peace agreement by asking the warring parties to recommit themselves to the agreement and to bring new rebel groups on board.


It is very important that the UK Government, especially with TROIKA, uses the forthcoming meetings to ensure sustained pressure on the warring parties to revive the collapsed peace agreement; to recommit themselves to permanent ceasefire; to open humanitarian corridors so that civilians can be given food aid; and to reach a political settlement so that the millions of refugees and IDPs can return to their homes and rebuild their lives”.


The archbishop also highlights problems of bureaucratic procedures for emergency funding—for example, food to save the lives of starving IDPs. When many hundreds of IDPs flooded into Wau earlier this year, he had to borrow money from local traders to obtain food and save them from starvation. Might Her Majesty’s Government urge DfID to consider working more with local partners such as the churches, which have the confidence of local communities, and to make the application process more user-friendly and the response to emergencies more rapid? The archbishop urges the UK to ensure that the HLRF process is genuinely inclusive and gives a strong platform to the voices of grass-roots South Sudanese groups, including churches, traditional leaders, women’s and youth groups. He also urges the UK’s approach to conflict resolution not to focus solely on the high-level peace process but to address root causes of conflict on the ground, investing in community-based peacebuilding and locally led reconciliation initiatives.

I greatly appreciate this opportunity to put on record some of the problems causing such suffering to the peoples of Sudan and South Sudan. I am very grateful to those noble Lords who will be able to highlight issues I have not had time to mention or discuss adequately. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the people of these countries so that when I send them this debate, they will see a response by the UK Government compatible with the responsibilities which we have a duty to fulfil.

Northern Cyprus

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the problems that will be faced by the people of Northern Cyprus in the event of the failure of reunification talks; and what plans they have to assist in resolving any such problems.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, your Lordships will be aware that this debate, which was listed as the dinner break business, will now constitute the last business of the day. This means that theoretically it can be extended to 90 minutes and that Back-Benchers can, if so minded, speak for 10 minutes. That is not mandatory but they can do so if they so desire.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak for 10 minutes. I declare an interest as co-chair of the APPG for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, has asked me to apologise for, and convey his regrets at, being unable to speak tonight as intended. His flight from Northern Ireland was a victim of Storm Ophelia.

When I tabled this Question, the negotiations over the reunification of Cyprus had not concluded. That is why the Question on the Order Paper contains the words,

“in the event of the failure of reunification talks”.

Those talks have failed, as did all previous talks over the last 50 years. The Question on the Order Paper is no longer hypothetical; it is now about the actual problems to be faced by the people of Northern Cyprus and about the actual help that Her Majesty’s Government may be able to provide in alleviating these problems.

Most commentators on the failed talks, this time and every preceding time, agree that reunification would bring economic benefits to all the citizens of Cyprus. Those benefits will not now materialise and there is no realistic prospect of them materialising in the foreseeable future. That is because there is no prospect in the foreseeable future of any reunification. No matter how much talk there may be from Greek Cypriots about continuing talks, it is clear that that will not happen. It is clear because every possible solution and every possible permutation of every compromise is known and has been proposed and exhaustively discussed, not just this time but in the Annan plan and in the preceding conversations. They have always failed.

There is no conceivable basis for any future talks without profound changes in what possibly both sides are prepared to accept. There is no sign that this will or can happen. The truth is that there is no incentive for the Greek Cypriots to compromise and no willingness on the part of the Turkish Cypriots to be subsumed into a Greek Cypriot-run state. There is no convergence of interests, not even over the exploitation of the offshore oil and gas finds, and there is no point in doing the same thing over and again and expecting something different to happen.

The failure of the Crans-Montana talks cannot be held at the door of the Turkish Cypriots. It cannot be laid at Turkey’s door either—it did, after all, offer to reduce the number of its troops on the island from 40,000 to 650—and the failure certainly cannot be laid at the door of Her Majesty’s Government. In fact, I make clear my gratitude and admiration for the effort made by Her Majesty’s Government to facilitate a solution to the Cyprus problem, and I particularly thank Sir Alan Duncan, Jonathan Allen and the whole FCO team for their hard work and commitment. There should be no doubt that this Government wanted the reunification talks to succeed and tried very hard to make that happen. I know how very disappointed they were by the final outcome.

However, the outcome was failure, and the consequences of that failure fall most heavily on the people of Northern Cyprus. Greek Cyprus is relatively rich; Turkish Cyprus is relatively poor. Greek Cyprus is an active part of the EU; Turkish Cyprus is technically part of the EU but enjoys none of the benefits of EU membership. Greek Cyprus trades with the world; Turkish Cyprus is under embargo. The future of the people of the north looks bleak, with no trade possibilities, no real inward investment and no external relations. It is cut off and isolated. Through no fault of their own, the people of Northern Cyprus are isolated and impoverished. They are an economic dependency of an increasingly distracted, erratic and authoritarian Turkey. The whole region is aware of the tensions that exist between the Republic of Cyprus and Turkey over the oil and gas deposits in the island’s EEZ. The eastern Mediterranean region emphatically does not need a continuation of this tension.

However, we are where we are. The island has no real foreseeable prospect of reunification and the people of the north need help. I understand that help may be difficult to provide—not impossible, but certainly not straightforward. Ideally, help would take the form of ending or mitigating the effects of the embargo, restoring direct flights and shipping, and promoting inward investment. None of this is straightforward.

The UK position is hedged around with difficulties. There are EU and UN judgments and resolutions, and the votes of Greece and the Republic of Cyprus to consider in our Brexit negotiations. There is also the vital importance of our sovereign bases on the island. However, none of these things amounts to a reason for the UK simply confining itself to the hope that reunification talks might some day resume and have a different outcome. Surely there are things that can be done now—small things at first, but helpful none the less.

Flights from Northern Cyprus to the United Kingdom are a case in point. Until 1 April, flights from Ercan to the UK touched down briefly in Turkey and then continued to the United Kingdom. From 1 April, at the instigation of the United Kingdom, all passengers, baggage and cargo have had to be disembarked in Turkey for additional security screening. This adds significant delay, inconvenience and cost to the flights. The Department for Transport has told me that this new security screening was needed because the United Kingdom did not have sight of the security arrangements at Ercan. This makes the additional security arrangements in Turkey both completely understandable and obviously necessary.

However, the question is: why do we not gain oversight of the security arrangements at Ercan and satisfy ourselves that they are adequate or will be made adequate? I have asked this question in this Chamber and in writing to the Minister. I asked whether we have had discussions with officials in Northern Cyprus about the lack of sight of security arrangements at Ercan. The answer was this:

“The Government has not discussed security arrangements … with officials in the northern part of Cyprus. The Republic of Cyprus has not designated Ercan as an airport under the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. The Court of Appeal has ruled that direct flights from Ercan to the UK therefore cannot take place. Flights from Ercan to the UK land first in Turkey where passengers, their baggage, and any cargo are screened before the aircraft continues on to the UK”.


I note in passing that I had not asked about direct flights to the UK. The answer does not mention the fact that, prior to 1 April, security checks were carried out at Ercan and not in Turkey.

Notwithstanding all that, things seem to have moved on a little. Last Wednesday, representatives from the Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations, the British Turkish Cypriot Association, and the Turkish Cypriot Chambers of Commerce for Northern Cyprus and the UK met the Secretary of State for Transport and others to discuss the situation. I am told it was agreed at that meeting that further investigative work is required to find a solution to the problem, which was correctly characterised as a security issue. I welcome this outcome and the signs of flexibility and willingness to talk and help that it shows. There is no legal barrier to our Department for Transport’s aviation people inspecting and assessing security at Ercan, which would comply with any request they might make. This is one way in which Her Majesty’s Government can help the people of Northern Cyprus in their isolation. There will be others.

The UK remains a guarantor power. It must also take some responsibility for allowing a divided island into the EU, thus removing any real leverage over the south. We are the former colonial power, we have two large and vital sovereign bases on the island, and we have an interest in maintaining peace and stability in Cyprus, in a region where there is very little of either. I make no criticism of HMG’s recent involvement with the island—rather the opposite. This speech is not an attack on Her Majesty’s Government and not a request for recognition of the north. It is a request for help for the people of Northern Cyprus. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s assessment of the problems now facing those people and the ways that HMG might be able to provide concrete help.

Sudan

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, for securing this timely debate. Undoubtedly some noble Lords will address the threats posed by Islamic militants in the countries that surround Sudan. Its physical location places it at the heart of Africa.

The importance of an ally such as Sudan in the war on terrorism has always been clear. It was Sudan that identified, arrested and extradited Ilich Ramírez Sánchez—Carlos the Jackal—to France in 1994. It is also a matter of record that Sudan offered to arrest and extradite Osama bin Laden to Washington—an offer refused by the Clinton Administration, with disastrous consequences. Sudan has signed and enforced all relevant international anti-terrorist protocols. Sudan has co-operated on counterterrorism issues for two decades. As early as November 2001, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage stated that Sudanese co-operation on counterterrorism was “really terrific”. Sudan’s importance in the war against terrorism has intensified in the past few years. In 2012, Jean-Claude Cousseran, the former head of the French equivalent of MI6, said:

“Africa will be our neighbourhood Afghanistan”.


It is right that we look at the threat posed to Sudan by extremists in the surrounding countries, but we must also address the elephant in the room. We must look at the role played by British foreign policy in enabling the terrorist threat faced by Sudan and other African countries. British foreign policy in this respect has been nothing short of disastrous.

In 2011, the new coalition Government chose to unpick one of the few foreign policy successes of the Blair years—the containment of the Gaddafi Government in Libya, the abandonment of their nuclear programme and Tripoli’s wholehearted co-operation on counter- terrorism. Her Majesty’s Government chose to wage war against the Libyan Government in support of several anti-government Islamist militias with al-Qaeda affiliations.

In an article in the Guardian, I warned at the time that it was a dangerous assumption to believe that the Libyan rebels were all Facebook idealists. In their more candid moments, Western political and military leaders admitted at the time that they knew next to nothing about the gunmen for whom NATO was acting as a de facto air force and whom they were militarily equipping.

As clearly documented in Paul Moorcraft’s 2015 study, The Jihadist Threat, Her Majesty’s Government’s Libya policy demonstrated another clear contradiction. The United Kingdom has some of the most draconian anti-terrorist legislation in the world. While it is illegal for a young Briton of Pakistani descent to as much as look at a jihadist website in his bedroom, the British authorities turned a blind eye to the hundreds of young Britons of Libyan descent travelling from Britain to undergo jihadist military training and political indoctrination in training camps in Libya, Egypt and eastern Tunisia that were no different from those in Afghanistan. Many of those British citizens then went to fight with al-Qaeda-aligned militias against Gaddafi forces. The Daily Mail ran an article with the headline:

“Why do so many Libyan rebels seen on TV speak with British accents?”.


When I asked in a Written Question in mid-2015 whether Her Majesty’s Government were aware of any British Libyans who took part in overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi, and whether any of them had since returned to the United Kingdom, the Government stated that,

“we do not hold any information on this matter”.

The reality is that British foreign policy continues to create and enable not just our enemies but extremist forces that Governments such as that of Sudan will have to confront.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Can the noble Lord move on so that I can answer the Question?

[Lord Ahmed]

We must learn with regard to British foreign policy toward Syria.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sheikh]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down—

[Baroness Goldie]

Order.

Brexit: UK International Relations

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in sending my good wishes to my noble friend Lord Howell, and thank my noble friend Lord Jopling for the excellent way in which he introduced this debate.

I shall talk about the US, particularly its external relations. President Trump is probably coming to office with the biggest opportunity, and the biggest division between himself and his predecessors, of anyone since FDR in 1932. Unfortunately, unlike FDR, he does not have a vice-president of the calibre of Sam Rayburn to get things though the House. Therefore, I think he will face the difficulty of translating the enormous promises he has made into any sort of action. Much of the action, of course, we would prefer not to see.

We love Roosevelt but it is worth looking at the reality of his time, which we have glossed over. He was also very much an American President. We should remember that he did not declare war on Germany; he declared war on Japan. Germany declared war on him, so he had no option in that regard. Roosevelt was a tough negotiator. If we are expecting favours in Washington, we should read the memoirs of John Maynard Keynes and a few other people, and we will soon see that the United States is not unlike any other country in that it looks after its own national interest. That is what Foreign Offices do. As I am sure my noble friend Lady Anelay will confirm, the job of a Foreign Office is to get the best deal for its country. Therefore, we may get our equivalent of Smoot-Hawley in tariffs but the best way of resisting that is to point out the disastrous effect it had on the world and the world economy last time round. However, the prospect of infrastructure expenditure may well make it easier for the President to rebalance defence expenditure, because, when push comes to shove, it is how much public money goes into your district, not what it is spent on, that gets votes in the US Congress.

My next point will probably not find much favour in this House. I believe that the advent of President Trump gives us the opportunity to reset our relations with Russia. I think that we have fundamentally misunderstood Russia. Russia has not rolled back to communism; it has moved to a nationalist, Christian-based, fairly fundamentalist way of looking at the world. One of the factors about Russia is that it is very keen on getting its equivalent of a Monroe doctrine. It believes that it is as much its right to have at least partially on side the countries round it as the United States does. That, of course, does not stop us having views, opinions and interventions in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. But after a lifetime of dealing with foreign affairs, I can tell your Lordships that the UK Government always pull their punches slightly further back in some areas than they do in others. Russia regards itself as having interests. That gives us an opportunity to reset our relations with it.

If we are to make NATO work, the countries of NATO have to start paying. You cannot expect the United States to spend 3.3% of its GDP on defence to defend Latvia, which, according to my research on Google, spent 1.1% in 2015. That is not on. There has to be a rebalancing. The United Kingdom’s priority should be to secure the borders of the EU and to relieve the pressure on them. I want to speak particularly about the Baltics, an area I have been to on several occasions. We have to say two separate things to the Baltic states. The first is, “You’ve got to make your Russians want to live here”. There is far too much discrimination against the Russian populations of these states. The second thing is, “If you want us to defend you we’re up for it, but you’ve got to put a reasonable amount of money into the pot. We’ve got to come to an agreement on what you want and you’ve got to pay a good proportion of it”. Otherwise, quite frankly, we are going to make commitments we cannot carry out. The Russians are not fools. They hear us saying, “We’ll defend this. We’re going to do this with Crimea”. They know that we cannot, and will not, deliver that, and that we will not spend the money to do so.

This is an opportunity for us to reset our relations in a way that works. We have to negotiate with our allies to make sure that they are prepared to put up the money and give the commitment we need to make an alliance work. In or out of the EU, I believe that we can offer our help and support, but we should take this opportunity to try to cast our relations in a more realistic way and get rid of some of the “drama queen” stuff that has been around in western European foreign policy for the last few years.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, before the next speaker commences, I invite the co-operation of your Lordships in this very well subscribed debate in observing the time limits. We have a serious bit of slippage, which will impact on other speakers unless we can gather it up. I seek noble Lords’ assistance in looking at the clock. When the clock says “five”, that is the time to reunite the noble posterior with the Red Bench.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl. It is very helpful that this debate immediately follows the excellent debate that focused on the need for greater development support for women and girls in the world. It highlighted the context of where we are in the developing world. The need for an increased focus on that area is part of the changing global environment in which the new Secretary-General will be taking up his role.

With regard to the previous debate, I reflected that it was UK leadership within the European Union, at the financing for development conference in Addis Ababa, that led to an increase in EU support for aid. I was considering what the European Union’s position on the 0.7% target will be, given that it was UK leadership that increased EU aid year on year. Not taking part in future such conferences will be one of the consequences of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. However, it highlights that the global pressures are materially different from when the UN family and its agencies were established two generations ago, so I was very pleased that the committee chose as its first subject what the priorities of the new Secretary-General should be.

As a member of the committee, I wish to add to the best wishes expressed by colleagues to our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, for stepping into the breach. It is a real privilege for me to serve on the committee with far more experienced colleagues in this House and to learn a great deal from it.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, indicated, the material difference in the world community is the great pressures on the youngest generation. Unprecedentedly, the Middle East and north Africa have their youngest generation experiencing the highest employment pressures—especially those with an education. Globalisation is not only here and is having an imbalanced impact but it is irreversible. The fact that we have also an unprecedented number of internally displaced people within countries around the world puts huge pressures on individual UN member states, and we have unseen levels of movement of people, whether caused by those seeking refuge, those seeking employment or those affected by climate change.

A strong part of the committee’s report is where we highlight that one of the absolute priorities for the new Secretary-General will be to take forward the 2015 and 2016 global conferences, which offered solutions in these areas. I was very pleased to see the Government’s response to say that they agreed with paragraphs 161 and 162 of the report—there is overall consensus. I wish Amina Mohammed, the new deputy Secretary-General, well in the role that will be played in that position.

It is fair to say that there were questions in the committee about whether Brexit would provide the UK with a greater ability to play an increased role in meeting those challenges. The Government somewhat asserted that it would—it is fair to say that the Minister said it with a higher degree of enthusiasm than the officials did. Nevertheless, we need more evidence as to how that assertion will be backed up. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, when in her evidence to the committee she said that another element of Brexit would be that the UK would lose its role to,

“interpret to the rest of the world what is happening in the EU, and the rest of the world expects us to have a huge, positive influence on that”.

That is of concern. It is also the case that we will not necessarily be able to turn to the Commonwealth, nor does the Commonwealth necessarily wish us to, and be a leader in that community, which is so well established and has its own networks.

Finally, I turn to the UK’s relationship with the United States, which is pertinent. I cannot see, yet, how the position of the UK Government, with their “global Britain” approach, will sit comfortably alongside the “America first” approach. The fact is that on all the issues—international development, women’s rights and climate change—President Trump has a different view not only from the United Kingdom but from the consensus around the world. As he has said overnight, his preferred approach is based on how he feels about issues rather than the evidence presented to him. That is a very deep concern. I look to our Prime Minister to send clear signals that the UK is prepared to separate itself from US foreign policy, rather than simply adhere to it.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I am sorry to be tiresome, but time is tight and there is still slippage. I invite noble Lords’ co-operation in trying to trim their contributions as much as possible in deference to the winding-up speeches. I thank noble Lords for their co-operation.

Brexit: UK-EU Relationship

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Chandos (Lab)]

My Lords:

“The UK will intensify its relationship with its friends across the channel at an inter-governmental level”.

Those are not the words of a diehard supporter of remain but of the newly appointed Foreign Secretary on 14 July this year, fresh from his leadership of the campaign that secured the referendum vote to leave. What, then, should that relationship be? Five months after the referendum, as other noble Lords have said, the Government have offered no clue as to the nature of the relationship that they would like to achieve. There has been much talk of not compromising our negotiating position by showing our hand but, in reality, the truth is that the Conservative Government were totally unprepared for the outcome of the referendum.

In January 2013, the Conservative Government committed to a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU by the end of 2017 in the event that they won the next general election, and to its inclusion as a condition for any new coalition. They committed to honouring the outcome of the referendum and the then Prime Minister committed to staying on to implement whichever decision the referendum mandated. The Government may ultimately have campaigned for a remain vote, but it was still their responsibility to prepare for either eventuality. Three and a half years after committing to the referendum—nearly twice the length of the negotiating period provided for under Article 50—the Conservative Government had made no preparations of any sort. This casual and negligent arrogance made the Royal Bank of Scotland look by comparison well prepared for the great financial crisis. This is the vacuum that needs to be filled and in the circumstances the Government should welcome and constructively engage with the ideas of others both within Parliament and elsewhere.

I should like to use my remaining time to draw your Lordships’ attention to one such idea—a proposal for a continental partnership put forward by Sir Paul Tucker, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and his co-authors, under the sponsorship of the economics think tank Bruegel, and described by the economics commentator Hamish McRae as,

“the most convincing sketch yet of how this relationship might look”.

I believe that the importance of this proposal is not so much its specific suggestions—although they are pretty compelling, in my view—as the signal given by the identity of Sir Paul’s co-authors. They include, writing in a personal capacity, Jean Pisani-Ferry, the Commissioner-General for Policy Planning for the French Prime Minister, and Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Bundestag. The proposal envisages membership of the single market for,

“an outer circle of countries involved in a structured intergovernmental partnership”—

words that echo those of the Foreign Secretary, and an—

“intergovernmental form of collaboration, with no legal right to free movement for workers but a regime of some controlled labour mobility and a contribution to the EU budget”.

Time does not allow for a more detailed summary, and as Hamish McRae suggested, we should perhaps regard it as a good sketch rather than a finished picture. I do not pretend either that the personal views of the authors can be interpreted as a fast track to a done deal, given that we are facing, as the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU has said in his characteristically understated way, the “most complex negotiations” of all time. However, I am more optimistic than my noble friend Lord Livermore that behind the hard-line initial positions taken by EU leaders, mirroring and indeed responding to our own leaders’ rhetoric, there is among the key thinkers at the heart of the EU an understanding of the concerns lying behind the referendum vote and a desire to find a constructive solution of potentially wider relevance. I have no doubt that the Government have this proposal in their in-tray, not least as a founding member and funder of Bruegel.

My honourable friend Keir Starmer has asked the Government 170 excellent Questions but I will ask only two. Do the Government regard the model set out in the proposal as a good sketch from which a final picture could be derived, and will they engage, perhaps through Sir Paul Tucker, in discussions about it?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I have to point out that we have a fairly serious overrun. Perhaps I may respectfully remind noble Lords that when the Clock shows “four” they are over time. It does not matter how anxiously noble Lords continue to glance at the Clock, that will not minimise the time by which they run over, it will simply defer and exceed the run-over. I ask for your Lordships’ co-operation so that the moment the Clock shows “four”, they conclude their remarks.