Ukraine: BBC World Service

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I strongly agree with the point made by my noble friend. I do not think there is any question on this; I am certainly not aware of anything that has been said that would in any way suggest that the Government do not recognise the tremendous value that the World Service provides, particularly in circumstances such as today’s, where, as my noble friend said, we are up against a brutal regime which is second to none globally in the art of misinformation. So I strongly agree with my noble friend’s comments and will convey the message from him and other noble Lords to the department.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

The integrated review proudly and rightly states that

“The BBC is the most trusted broadcaster worldwide”,


and the Minister has repeated that. When the review was published, with the cut in ODA and the attacks on the BBC, that struck me as extreme irony. The Minister has just said that he cannot comment on funding, but he should be able to, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, is right that he can certainly make sure that the constant and insidious attacks on the BBC, including the World Service, are silenced.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the BBC as an organisation is absolutely gigantic. We are talking today about a critical part of that service, but it is just one part. It should be possible to be critical of many different aspects of the BBC as an organisation or its focus, without that being seen to undermine what everyone recognises as the extraordinarily valuable and unique international service it provides. I reiterate what I said earlier: that service will continue.

Belarus

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely important point. This view is shared by the UK Government, and it is reflected in the approach we are taking in relation to sanctions on individuals and organisations in Belarus.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the leader of free Belarus, and I hope we will not have to wait too long before she is in the position that she should be in. She told us how important those sanctions are and, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, just referred to, that the Russians are using loopholes. We need comprehensively and urgently to address this. We will put some people from her group in touch with the FCDO with further details. One of the other things that struck me from what she said is how vital it is for unbiased news to reach the citizens of Belarus, which we will come on to later. What action is being taken to support news organisations, particularly the BBC, in relation to Belarus?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for making the introduction. I can tell her that Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly met the leader of the opposition, Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, only yesterday, but we will certainly continue that dialogue, important as it is.

The noble Baroness is also absolutely right on the question of the media. We condemn the politically motivated crackdown on independent media in that country and remain deeply concerned about the safety of journalists there. Dozens of journalists, bloggers and media workers are under arrest or in jail. Websites of reputable media outlets have been declared extremist by the regime. One of the priorities of our programme funding in Belarus is supporting media freedom. We appeal to the Belarusian authorities to unconditionally and immediately release all political prisoners and to fully restore the free media space in Belarus, online and offline. Finally, we have increased our funding in this area, I believe threefold. If that is wrong, I will get back in touch with the noble Baroness.

Ukraine: Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, if I may, I must first correct my noble friend: it is the FCDO. The development element of our work is extremely important and it links in with the humanitarian support. I confirm that through rapid deployment teams, including the assessments they are making, we are working directly with the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Government to determine exactly what is required on the ground. I agree with him; as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said, what is best for the Ukrainian people is for people to make cash donations, and the DEC appeal demonstrates the importance of that.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and his colleague alongside him—the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—for their help in relation to a case flagged to me by World Jewish Relief, and which I flagged in your Lordships’ House on Monday, of an elderly lady in her 90s who was waiting for a visa in Warsaw. What action is he taking to ensure that the system to assist refugees in such a desperate situation is fit for purpose and properly funded, so that we do not have to come to him and his colleague with individual cases?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for flagging that issue. I speak for my noble friend as well as myself, and I know that I speak for the whole of the Front Bench in saying that wherever there are issues it is our job to respond to Members’ inquiries directly to us in our own roles. If we can assist, as we have managed to do in this case, that is a tribute to the noble Baroness and indeed to the whole of your Lordships’ House about the importance of working collaboratively on this crisis. My noble friend will be taking an Urgent Question shortly on fitness for purpose, but I am assured by her and the Home Office that, for example, visa applications are being received. Over 10,000 people have already started their applications, and as of this morning over 1,000 visas had been issued by the United Kingdom.

Global Refugee Forum

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The teams are designing an entirely new scheme for an entirely new situation as quickly as possible. That is reflected in the numbers that have so far been reported. But from everything we have heard today— from the Foreign Secretary and the relevant Minister—we are up and running and we are ready now to absorb larger numbers of refugees from Ukraine.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

I referred a case to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, of a very frail lady in her 90s who has been brought to my attention by World Jewish Relief. She is in Warsaw and, as I say, she is very frail. Will the Minister please return to his department and make sure that her case is expedited? Her granddaughter is a UK citizen. She clearly qualifies to come to the United Kingdom. She is very frail, and she is an example of many others in that situation. Can we make sure that, in this case, the Home Office is not proving to be the kind of block that it has been over Afghan refugees?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I am not familiar with the case the noble Baroness describes, but I assure her that I will convey her message back to both the Foreign Office and the Home Office. We will do whatever we can.

Taiwan

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I think a theme is emerging. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, has secured a very timely debate, as the noble Lord has just said. The Chinese leadership will be watching this current crisis. Putin claims that Ukraine belongs to Russia, while China claims Taiwan—autocracies threatening to swallow up democracies.

We know the dictum that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We are seeing the fruits of that right now in Europe. We recall that Russia took Crimea and there was no prolonged international outcry. It has fought an eight-year war in the Donbass but the world paid little attention. We have seen democratic Hong Kong taken over, if more subtly than is happening in Ukraine. The international community as a whole did not come to the assistance of the people of Hong Kong, so we should take seriously China’s increasing intrusions into Taiwan’s airspace. Are these intimidating measures or do they signal something more?

Few thought that Russia would really aim to take the whole of Ukraine; we cannot be sanguine here. China is assiduous in making sure that no country recognises Taiwan. I note the Government’s position on this, which reflects the concerns at China’s potential reaction—not Taiwan’s interests or those of the wider world.

In China, as in Russia, you have a leader who has supreme power, who wishes to leave a legacy, who feels that their country has been undervalued, who is no doubt more savvy than the brutal Putin and who always applies the lessons from the break-up of the Soviet Union but, nevertheless, is someone who should not be underestimated. We already see that the economic sanctions rightly hurting Russia will also have an effect on us. What happens to Taiwan is also likely to affect us. It is therefore not only right but in our interests that we pay attention.

As others have mentioned, Covid is a stark reminder of how interconnected we all are; not only did a disease travel around the world in weeks and months but fighting that pandemic affected the supply chain so that even the availability of toys at Christmas in the United Kingdom was affected two years later. Taiwan, sitting alongside China, was already acutely aware of that interconnectedness and, in the case of the pandemic, was far better prepared than most other countries, as we have heard. That is another reason why it should be in international groupings. It would benefit from such engagement but so too would we. What are we doing to facilitate that? What progress are we making at the WHO?

Our need for a strong, rules-based international order is overwhelming. Our need to be vigilant is crystal clear. That must include the present and future of Taiwan.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The UK’s aid of £286 million for 2021-22 provides live-saving support to the most vulnerable. The UK is pressing the World Bank and its shareholders to allocate the remainder of the £1.2 billion that is in the Afghan reconstruction trust fund. This includes the release of £280 million in December, which helped to ensure that health services are accessible and available for women and girls and supported households to access food.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a good start for International Women’s Day would be for the United Kingdom to be as open as the EU to women and girls fleeing extreme violence in Ukraine?

Oil Tanker “FSO Safer”

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This would be a really colossal disaster—probably four times worse than the “Exxon Valdez” spill. It would cause irreparable damage and require clean-up costing many billions. He is also right that we urgently need the Houthis to allow the UN to make a technical inspection of the vessel. Unless and until they agree to that, the international community cannot make any meaningful progress. Houthi co-operation is therefore absolutely critical if we want to make that progress.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in the region warns that the risk of imminent catastrophe is very real. As the Minister will know, clearly such a spill would disrupt trade through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, with global effects. Above all, as he has noted, it would be disastrous in the region, closing Yemeni ports, disrupting the food aid on which half the population of Yemen depends, and affecting all sides, including the Houthis. What strategies are being taken forward to try to deliver a safe resolution to this problem?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, in addition to the answer I gave to the previous question, that really is absolutely central. Our hands are tied until there is proper, meaningful co-operation. The UK has put this on the international agenda. UK-funded research identified the threat posed by the tanker and has been used by international partners, including the UN, to underpin their assessments. We have provided £2.5 million towards UN efforts. We are supporting the UN “Safer” working groups by providing a technical adviser to help them develop their mitigation and contingency plans, and much more besides. Fundamentally, we need to stop this happening, because the effects will take many years and costs vast sums of money to recover.

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, there are often challenges to the multilateral agencies working on the ground, particularly the United Nations. It is crises such as the Afghanistan crisis which really show the best of the world and how we can come together in response to humanitarian crisis. The UN provides the umbrella whereby we can work with all international partners, including China as well as others, to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those who most need it.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

Taken together, given the expertise in the FCDO in relation to Afghanistan—even with cuts in funds—will the department play a key role in the MoJ/Home Office decisions made under the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme on who will be admitted to the United Kingdom because their lives are in danger in the country? The situation since August has been totally unacceptable.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, since August we have helped close to 4,000 people to leave Afghanistan. The noble Baroness rightly raises the issue of co-ordination. The recent announcement by the Minister for Afghan Resettlement outlined the various schemes and the pathways within each scheme. I have already alluded to one pathway where the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is directly involved with the commitments we have made. I assure the noble Baroness that, overall, both with the department concerned, which is the MoJ, where Victoria Atkins sits, and more broadly—with the ARAP scheme, for example, which continues to be administered and run by the Ministry of Defence—we continue to co-ordinate and work together.

India: Missionaries of Charity

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know, in my capacity as not just Minister for South Asia but Minister for Human Rights, I see the issue and important role of civil society organisation as key. I share with the noble Baroness the view that civil society has a central and pivotal role to play in not just standing up for but defending human rights within countries. India is a very good example of a massive democracy where the institution of human rights is key. A key pillar of human rights is ensuring that civil society is not just sustained but able to prosper. That will certainly continue to be part of my engagement with the Indian Government.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, may I pin the Minister down somewhat? This is an issue which has come up repeatedly and over a period of time, so he will be very familiar with it. He mentions officials taking action here. Does he think it right that organisations such as Amnesty International and Oxfam are, in effect, being starved of funds? If he does not, what are we doing at ministerial level to engage with the Indian Government to seek to have these funds unblocked? Is this not what global Britain was supposed to be about: promoting UK values, including human rights?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly raises specific issues. She mentioned Amnesty International and I can assure her that I have taken that issue up directly with the Indian authorities, including the Indian high commissioner, as well as the Government in Delhi. That issue continues to provide challenge. However, because of our lobbying and representations, we welcomed the recent High Court decision in Karnataka which allowed Amnesty to access some of its funds. We remain in direct contact with Amnesty International and other organisations. I meet with them quite regularly on these and other matters.

Afghanistan

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for tabling this vital debate. There was UN agreement to go into Afghanistan, and we did so. There are, of course, questions about how strategic and integrated that engagement was, but there is no doubt that for a younger generation of Afghans, particularly women and girls, that intervention enhanced their life opportunities, as we have heard. We either mattered little to the Americans when they unilaterally decided to pull out, or we failed to pick up their warnings. That withdrawal has been disastrous, as we have heard. We owe so much to those who worked with us and inched the country forward. They trusted us.

Given the time available, my focus will be on those who wish to leave. I appreciated the Minister’s efforts in those desperate days as the Taliban took control of the country and the allies beat a very hasty retreat. He sought to help the individuals who were in extreme danger. There was much media coverage at the time, and in the heat of that, the Government created the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. As the media shifts its focus, the Home Office has failed to open that scheme, even though it was designed and promoted as one to assist those at extreme immediate risk. It is beyond astonishing that this scheme is not yet open.

The FCDO and the Minister’s office used to be at the forefront in trying to assist those in danger. Now, I am afraid that they block the door, even in cases I have been dealing with of the most obviously deserving candidates: parliamentarians at extreme risk. In an Answer to a Written Question that I tabled, I was told by the Home Office:

“The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme is not yet open and remains under development.”


It also makes it clear that it is pulling up the drawbridge. Those who are already here will be counted into this scheme, even though it was promoted for those still stranded in the country. I want the Minister to tell me honestly: does he expect this scheme ever to be opened? If it is, will it simply count those who are already here, so that those who have not made it here, but, as he knows, most certainly qualify, will never stand a chance of being included? I look forward to his full response.