Chilcot Inquiry

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with almost everything that the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, said. He is absolutely right that getting the truth about this very complex and troubling story is more important than having a particular deadline in mind. An attempt to have an interim report would be very dangerous; it would lead to Maxwellisation and counter-Maxwellisation in an endless effort to find out the truth.

One difficulty of the whole report is that we were still getting substantial chunks of serious evidence as late as last weekend. The discovery of the Powell memorandum that went to the President of the United States, which explicitly set out in terms that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was willing to consider military action, is of the first importance, not just because of the issue itself—many of us would disagree about military action; others would support it—but on an another issue that is equally important. It was March 2002 when the Powell memorandum was sent to the President, shortly before the summit meeting that took place at the ranch of the President in Crawford, Texas, in March 2002.

One of the crucial aspects of this was illuminated by the fact that, in February 2003, I asked the then Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, whether there was any prospect of military action. I repeat the date: March 2003. The noble Baroness said: “I repeat that there is no prospect of military action at the present time”. The statement about Mr Blair’s view, dated March 2002, and the question that I asked the Leader of the House in February 2003, raise key constitutional questions. The immediate question which needs to be pursued by the Chilcot commission is whether the British Cabinet knew anything about the proceedings and negotiations between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States.

Mr Blair was a great believer in presidential leadership. One of his views was that something called “sofa diplomacy” was central to getting serious outcomes discussed and agreed. The difficulty with sofa government is that it excludes something which is critical to our way of doing politics, in which collective decisions are made by the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, not just by the Prime Minister. That has major implications. Presidential decisions—at least in theory—can be made by the President on his own. It is up to him whether he consults advisers or not. That is not the situation in the United Kingdom, and many of us would not wish to see it become the situation. The concept of Cabinet responsibility is deeply bound up with that of parliamentary responsibility.

What was the Chilcot commission asked to do? It has been harshly criticised on grounds it could not have avoided. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, correctly said, it was given an almost impossible mandate of exploring the period from 2001 all the way through to 2009: eight years of endless negotiation and discussion. The report is intended to cover not just the run-up to the war and the invasion of Iraq but also the issues of what the aftermath should be, what the exit strategy was and what steps should be taken to protect Iraq during the reconstruction. We now find that very little of that was ever openly discussed in Parliament or even in the US Congress.

I will take a moment to look at what was discussed in the US Congress. In September 2002, still well before the invasion, Congressmen asked Mr Powell and—perhaps more significantly—the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, where the money was going to come from for the reconstruction of Iraq. This reconstruction would be crucial to the prospects for peace in the Middle East and the surrounding area. Donald Rumsfeld answered that he did not know. He was asked if it was suggested that the money should come from the United States. The question was: “Will it be dollars for the reconstruction?”. His brutal reply was: “I do not think it will be dollars and I do not think it is likely to involve us”. In other words, he buried the issue of expenditure on reconstruction without the matter being discussed by Congress, which was crucially involved in giving support for any budgetary demand of that kind.

I will not go on—but, before I touch briefly on a couple of other matters, I will say that the Chilcot commission was confronted with an awful problem. The commission consists of five privy counsellors, selected not only for their long experience in international affairs but also, bluntly, for their outstanding reputation as people of integrity. I suspect that the issue of integrity was central for Sir John Chilcot and, as the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, implied, he is determined to find out the truth, however difficult that may be. We then roll on to the long, terrible story about the aftermath, in which it is increasingly clear that the British Government were hardly involved at all and that the issue was treated as a unilateral issue by the then Government of the United States.

I conclude by saying that we need desperately to have the truest possible account of this, which I think is the second-gravest mistake ever made in the history of the United Kingdom’s foreign policy after the end of the Second World War. It is on rather the same scale as the effects of Suez. Today, when we look at what has been tragically not only an attempt to try to invade Iraq but, perhaps more crucially, an attempt to see the Middle East fade away into a situation where there is almost no legally available support, let us not forget that an invasion based on the argument that you need regime change has no place in international law and no place in the United Nations.

Last of all, and perhaps most important, there is the straightforward fact that when we went along with the proposals for the aftermath, one issue that was never discussed with us was whether the Baathists should be completely expelled at the level of the police, the level of the army and the level of the civil service from a country which was then left in a desperate vacuum from which it has not to this day recovered. With peace in the Middle East very much in doubt today and very much sweeping towards a kind of nihilism, having a serious look at the truth of this report is probably the most important thing we can do to avoid anything like that happening in the future.

Chilcot Inquiry

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I start by saying that I entirely share the noble and learned Lord’s frustration, as I am sure do those who served and those who lost loved ones in Iraq. The general gist of his question—in fact, there were several questions rolled into one—was that we should scrap the inquiry. I cannot agree with the noble and learned Lord on that. First, the inquiry is independent of government and, most importantly of all, it has taken a long time to get this far—on that we agree—but it needs to be able to complete its work as quickly as possible so we can learn the lessons. Removing its members from office or stopping the inquiry now is not in the best interests of this work. However, I am sure that those involved in the inquiry will heed the views of your Lordships, especially those of the noble and learned Lord, on how long this is all taking.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, it is now more than 12 years since the invasion of Iraq. Does the Minister agree that, increasingly, the impression being given is that people do not want crucial facts to be subjected to public transparency, where they can be discussed and debated? Does he also accept that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, said, this situation is particularly unfair to those such as my late and very outstanding friend, Charles Kennedy, who said that, in engaging with the issue of whether we should have invaded Iraq, he found that, regarding possibly one of the most distinguished commissions that has been appointed by this House and the other Chamber, we have no way of knowing what its conclusions are, no way of knowing what it believes to be the sources of the Iraq war and no way of knowing what it believes the consequences of that war were. It is profoundly unjust and unfair to allow this situation to continue. May we ask the Prime Minister to insist that, at the very least, there should now be a report, even though some parts of it may be kept secret for security reasons?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I repeat that I obviously share, as does my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, the frustration that clearly many in this House feel about the length of time this is taking. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the letter that the Prime Minister sent to Sir John, in which he asked the Cabinet Secretary to meet Sir John “as soon as possible” to discuss progress on the completion of the report, and said that the Civil Service would continue to assist the inquiry in the “urgent completion” of its work.

Palestine: Recognition

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I share the views expressed by those who have already spoken of the importance of this House indicating that it agrees with the House of Commons on the question of the recognition of Palestine as a state. I will say just two things in the short time that I have.

First, those of us who care very deeply about the survival of Israel are extremely puzzled by how there can be any plan for survival in the outcome of the many, many years of argumentation—ending almost invariably in the breakdown of negotiations—that we have now seen over the last 40 years. That essentially means that there is no plan for a long-term dual state—Israel and Palestine—implicit in the discussions that are going ahead at the present time. If we believe that there should be a single state, that single state cannot be a Jewish state and cannot be a democratic state. It is very hard to see how we can bring those three essential things together: democracy, the existence of a Jewish state, and the survival of peace in the Middle East.

I therefore want to ask the following question: what kind of future without a two-state solution can we see? Is there any voice from the Israeli Prime Minister or, for that matter, any other of those concerned with peace in the Middle East, that suggests that there is any solution other than a two-state solution? That two-state solution is literally slipping through our fingers as we talk. There is probably only, at best, a few months left to see a viable Palestine that could survive. That viable Palestine is shrinking by the month because of the steady extension of settlements on the West Bank and, of course, in Gaza.

Secondly, one of the great opportunities that we now have is represented by the acceptance of Palestine as an observer state—albeit not a full state—of the United Nations, coupled with its signature of the International Criminal Court treaty. The International Criminal Court has had a hard time, but one of the things that it has clearly indicated over and over again is its objectivity and its willingness to look at both sides of the issues that come before it. The commitment of Palestine to the concept of international law that is implicit in its signature of the International Criminal Court treaty is of the greatest possible importance. It could pave the way to a recognition in other Arab states of the role that the ICC should have in the steady development of the rule of law internationally. The fact that the International Criminal Court has shown the courage to align people with bad records on human rights and records of tyranny, even in cases where the political weight is often against it, suggests just how important this step could be.

In conclusion—and I want to repeat it as strongly as I possibly can, not least in the light of what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone—many of us deeply want to see the survival of Israel. We want to see it as a Jewish state; we want to see it as a guarantor that there is no future in anti-Semitism. However, we cannot hope to achieve these things if the state of Palestine continues to be unrecognised, dishonoured, abused, and relegated to a lesser marginal role. I, for one, would like to say to those of my colleagues from the United States who have had the amazing effrontery to suggest that there should be a punishment for the attempt of Palestine to receive membership of the International Criminal Court, which would involve the cutting off of American aid to the Palestinian Authority, that that is a complete distortion of what is meant by the rule of law and one that I hope that we in the United Kingdom will agree next time to stand up against.

Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the most reverend Primate for introducing this debate. Such a turnout on a Friday morning is so impressive that it reflects the great respect that this House has for him and the work that he and the Church of England have done. I hope he will take much strength from that observation.

I have been interested in the way that we have talked increasingly about soft power. I remember when the concept was introduced—originally, I think, by Professor Nye of Harvard. He talked about soft power in a very influential book which was published about 20 years ago, in a country that, for a very long time, did not perceive soft power as anything other than an escape from the hardest choices that have to be made. Among the things that I hope various Members of this House—perhaps not least the noble Lord, Admiral Lord West—will be able to talk to us about is what the relationship should be between the military and soft power, because it is crucial that they work together and are not in conflict with one another.

We have huge assets which a number of noble Lords—not least, of course, the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Anderson—have mentioned. It is important to say that one of the things that we should make quite clear is that we have those remarkable assets which, frankly, we have consistently undervalued. The list is astonishing. Importantly, of course, it includes the BBC, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, and in particular the World Service, which is often the Cinderella of the whole BBC system. It should not be, because its influence and effect have been colossal—far beyond the expenditure on it. Secondly, we have the huge advantage of the English language, which we have been lucky enough to make our own but which is now the closest thing we have to an international language. It is of crucial importance.

Thirdly, and not least, as the most reverend Primate said, there is the astonishing and growing influence of British universities and British technical colleges up and down this country. I completely and totally endorse and strongly support the remarks that he made about visas. We are seeing a conflict between the attitudes of different government departments, which is doing none of us any good. I speak as someone who was an overseas student first at Columbia and later at Harvard. There is a lifelong effect from studying in another country and getting to know that other country—coming out with friends from that other country, as the most reverend Primate said. Incidentally, there is one point that should be made about that—and not only the point about visas, which I hope the Minister will convey with some extreme passion to the Home Office. We also, importantly, need to think carefully about the hospitality that universities organise for those students who know this country not at all and do not perhaps speak English very well but who need a certain amount of help and assistance in settling down in the new context of a university in another country. It can be crucially important that people establish friendships while at university. Very often, those friendships—if one wants to be very tough-minded indeed—lead to business deals, investment and relationships between businesses of a kind that is of economic value to this country, as well as of cultural and educational value. We consistently underestimate the extraordinary power of higher education in building bridges and links with other countries, not least within the Commonwealth.

That brings me on to the Commonwealth itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said. It is an astonishing asset. We have largely failed to realise its full potential, which is absolutely immense. It is one of very few organisations in the world which, apart from being international, is also intercultural, interracial, and inter-educational and, not least, brings together different religions, cultures and so forth. I think that we could make much more of it. In that context, we have failed to recognise the astonishing contribution made by the Prince of Wales, who has established within the Commonwealth astonishing ways in which to recruit young men and women into entrepreneurial futures and innovation in science, and into new jobs. He is sometimes regarded by the media in this country as something of an eccentric figure, but it is important that we recognise the great contribution that he has made, with thousands of young men and women finding opportunities for the future and being able to contribute to the Commonwealth. That is something that we need to look at very closely. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, because he has played a very large part in this. Although I myself am a strong European, I agree completely that there is no necessary conflict; in fact, on the contrary, the United Kingdom should be crucial in building bridges between this newly developing great society and the old world of Europe. It could be immensely good for Europe as well as for the Commonwealth itself.

I shall say a word about the third form of soft power, which is very important but quite controversial. I refer of course to economic soft power, which comes very close to being hard power. I know Russia quite well—I am going to go there next week—and I think that sometimes we fail to remember its history, which is that of a huge country that is constantly challenged by invasion and, in some cases, occupation and, in many cases, misunderstanding. One sees in many policies of the Russian Government at present what could be described as a somewhat paranoiac reaction to the sense of being constantly on the defensive. What I am trying to say is that I recognise that sanctions have been effective—but targeted sanctions are much more sensible than generalised sanctions, which tend to be carried out with the suffering of the general public. Having targeted sanctions of the kind that we have specifically imposed on senior leading people in Russia is a much more sensible and imaginative policy. I also strongly believe that, if you are going to occupy yourself with a policy of sanctions, it is absolutely crucial that there is side by side with it a policy of negotiation and reconciliation. We have not done that sufficiently with Russia. We are moving tragically towards some kind of rather foolish resumption of the Cold War. What we need to do above all is to relate Russia to the other forms of relationship—cultural, artistic and educational —that are open to us, to show that great country that it is not simply put in the doghouse, to be blamed and pushed out of the international community.

I do not say those things while failing to recognise the colossal challenge to the world of law that is represented, particularly, by the annexation of Crimea without any legal process having been gone through or without acknowledging the deep and difficult concerns of the Russian relationship with Ukraine, a country that I know well. But it is so easy for us in Britain to forget the desperate history of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia, going right back to the First World War and the Second World War. As a country that wishes both well, we have a considerable role to play in mediation and negotiation, and it is one that we should take up more ambitiously and with more conviction than we do at present.

I shall talk briefly about a couple of other things. I shall talk quite controversially for just a moment about the role of the City of London. It is a very powerful international organisation with links throughout the world. It has long been part of the things that people greatly respect about the United Kingdom, but it is currently putting itself into a very vulnerable position. I greatly appreciate the role that the most reverend Primate has taken in trying to suggest to the City that it needs to regain its moral compass. The last three rounds of scandal—the forex scandal, the LIBOR scandal and, earlier on, the banking crisis itself—suggest that the City needs to sit down and think very hard about what its relationships should be in a world of soft power. I shall give only one illustration but I could give many more. It is vital that the leading banks in the UK, which have long had great respect paid to them, often rightly, should look much more energetically than they currently do at the whole issue of money laundering and its relationship to drug money and the sale of arms. In Parliament, we deserve greater attention to be paid to these things by the City, and I hope very much that the Treasury Select Committee and others will start to take up these matters in a way that the most reverend Primate has taken them up, with great courage and almost in the legacy of Christ overturning the tables at the temple that were mastered by the money changers.

Finally—and I apologise to the House if I have talked for longer than I should—I shall say one other word about the issue of soft power, and the way in which we as a country have to get across two things to our citizens and ourselves. One is, essentially, that if we are going to be effective in soft power, we have to show a certain humility. You cannot impose the old attitudes of the past. That means that, essentially, what we have to do is to extend our own education and learn from other countries—not least in the Commonwealth. There are things that we can learn from others. That is very important for the attitude that we take towards the wider world.

I conclude by saying that I have always believed very deeply that one central theme of Christianity is the victory of the Cross over the massed armies of Rome. That is in a sense a victory of soft power over hard power, and we have perhaps no better example to bear in mind when we consider how we should proceed with the policies advocated by the most reverend Primate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the most reverend Primate has given us the basis for a fascinating debate, starting with his own very helpful speech. The Government of course strongly support its underlying premise that soft power and non-military actions have a critical role in preventing conflicts and in building stronger societies, state structures and economic development. We are indeed deploying smart power as well as we can, which brings together all the tools at our disposal. That must be the cornerstone of our approach.

This year, sadly, we have seen an unpleasant increase in the number and intensity of high-profile armed conflicts around the world: some new, as in Ukraine, some revived and continuing, as in Libya, and some with a new and dangerous slant, as with the rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, while prospects for lasting peace in the Israel/Palestine conflict appear dimmer now than at the start of the year. The UK has been at the forefront of efforts to resolve these and other conflicts by peaceful means. Such is the complexity of modern conflicts, most often involving rather more non-state actors than state actors, as in the Sahel and across the Middle East, that we and like-minded members of the international community need to use the full range of tools available to us to try to restrict, contain and end these conflicts.

Conflict prevention is much more difficult than post-conflict reconstruction. The unexpected outbreak of the Arab spring in Tunisia, which no one, even in Tunisia, had suspected, is a perfect example of how difficult it is to anticipate just where conflicts might break out next and do one’s best to anticipate it. The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, pointed out the unanticipated spillover of the NATO and Gulf states intervention in Libya. We have to remember that that intervention was in large part intended as a humanitarian one to prevent the large-scale killing that was threatened within Libya at that time. The subsequent collapse of state and society into conflicting militias and the dispersal of weapons across the Sahel from abandoned military bases across the country was not foreseen. Sadly, as he rightly says, we are now faced with a huge problem of ungoverned areas within what we think of as states, albeit very weak ones, with which we now have to deal. Peacekeeping, post-conflict resolution and the containment of conflict have therefore to be our major preoccupations.

The Building Stability Overseas strategy, which has been mentioned, is the Government’s strategy to help to shape a stable world and tackle threats at their source. It has three areas where the Government wish to focus efforts: first, early warning, improving our ability to anticipate instability and potential triggers for conflict, so far as we can; secondly, rapid crisis prevention and response, taking fast, appropriate and effective action to prevent a crisis or to stop it from developing further; and, thirdly, investing in upstream prevention by trying to build strong, legitimate and robust societies in the many fragile countries and weak states around the world.

We fund this partly through the interdepartmental Conflict Pool. Again I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, that there is a great deal of cross-departmental co-operation in this, and it is improving. The National Security Council has now agreed to reform decision-making on the UK effort within fragile states. A new Conflict, Stability and Security Fund will therefore replace the current Conflict Pool in April 2015. That will have £1 billion, of which £100 million is new additional money. It will operate across several different departments and include work focused on reconciliation, intercommunity dialogue and weapons reduction and support focused on strengthening other countries’ institutions.

I welcome the general support for the size of our current development budget. It focuses on long-term development but deals with short-term and immediate humanitarian assistance. With the Norwegians and some others, we are now a leader in world development, and we are very proud of that. DfID has been scaling up its work in fragile and conflict-affected states and in the previous SDSR committed itself to investing 30% of total UK ODA in fragile and conflict-affected states. A great deal of effort goes into those many fragile countries across the world.

In addition to that, some of the ODA is being spent in other departments. I was in Istanbul at the weekend where the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, the UK trade envoy to Turkey, had just launched the UK’s Newton Fund, which is a DfID-funded but BIS-administered fund for promoting scientific and technological collaboration between British scholars and scholars in the developing world. I can assure the noble Lord that there is increasing co-operation across Whitehall to promote our broader developmental objectives.

On defence engagement, which a number of noble Lords asked about, the defence attaché network remains a key part of integrated UK support. I am told that in South Sudan we have worked extremely hard developing a Conflict Pool programme to try to support the evolution of what had been a guerrilla force into professional armed services. Sadly, there is a long way to go. In Ethiopia, we are bringing together defence engagement activity—the Conflict Pool and DfID’s development programme—to pull together the different dimensions of security and justice, as we all recognise that domestic policing is as important as armed forces. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred to military training, the Royal College of Defence Studies and many others. We are similarly engaged in training on the ground in fragile states and also back here.

Others talked about the immense value of all sorts of education that the British are engaged in. As an academic, partly at St Antony’s, which has been mentioned, and at the London School of Economics, I am very conscious of the extent to which, as I travel as a Minister, I meet my former students, who include one Prime Minister at the present, the retiring president of the Commission, one Commissioner and various other people. It helps—and it also helps add to my credibility with the FCO from time to time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, asked about the 0.7% commitment. I am glad that the Bill has now passed the other House. It is a little too early for me to say how we will respond, but I take her point and we will see what we can do in January and then on. The British Government are among the leaders in development aid. We are entitled to ask for more from others. The Deputy Prime Minister, when in Berlin last week, made that specific point to our German partners: we are doing well, but we expect others to come up more to the mark.

The most reverend Primate also mentioned the strategic defence and security review. I am struck that many noble Lords responded on that. Since I have already had to answer Questions in the House on what is happening on the SDSR, I welcome the surge of interest in that debate. The review is led by the Cabinet Office with a range of different departments, not just the Ministry of Defence, concerned with it.

I remind the noble Lord, Lord Admiral West, and other noble Lords that the 2010 strategic threat assessment had more non-military than military threats on its list of the most serious threats facing Britain. Those threats included: climate change; international criminal networks; terrorism driven by radical or violent ideologies; global epidemics; cyberattacks, including threats to critical national infrastructure; to which I would add global population growth, weak states, the spillover of civil conflict into state collapse and the surges of refugees as migrants towards safe countries such as the UK. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, that part of the argument for development assistance is that it enables people to stay within their own countries rather than flee across the Mediterranean to safer countries like our own. Then there is hybrid war, and the information war, which again, as the noble Baroness said, the Russians are currently waging, as well as their attempts to subvert political parties and other institutions within our safer Europe.

We should certainly consider some of these very large questions. How do we best respond to such a much wider range of threats? What mixture of assets should we best invest in—how much military and how much non-military? How much do we invest in overseas issues of this sort in meeting those threats, in comparison with our investment in domestic education, health, welfare and other public services? There are no soft choices here; this is a matter of very hard financial—

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Before my noble friend completes his very helpful display of what the Government propose to do, I will ask him about a question that was raised by my noble friend Lady Miller and the noble Lord, Lord West. Given that it will cost nothing and that, as he knows, there is a meeting on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the spring of 2015, will he tell the House whether he would consider the United Kingdom Government throwing more of their weight behind the idea of ending very early warning? One of the real fears that many of us have is that as the Russian Government begin to lose their capacity to maintain the highest quality of inspection and maintenance, there is a great danger that, with such tiny periods of alarm, an extremely serious accident could occur.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government have already invested in considerable preparations for the next NPT review. I take the opportunity to answer the question asked earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. The Government have decided to accept Austria’s invitation to attend the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, which will get under way this weekend. The UK will be represented by Mrs Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque, the UK’s ambassador to Austria and permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. I hope that is welcome news to all concerned.

In his opening, the most reverend Prelate talked about the importance of narrative. It is very important, with soft power, to talk about the importance of ideas. We all know that ideas shape the world in the long run, be they Christianity, Islam, the Enlightenment, communism, nationalism, fascism, or whatever; and radical Islam is now replacing the attractions of secular ideologies across the Middle East. We certainly need to think about our counternarrative. The traditional western and Anglo-Saxon narrative has been about open society, limited government, civil society, tolerance and human rights. The Reformation and beyond and the importance of non-conformity were not entirely appreciated by the Church of England in the 17th century, but it accepted them in the 19th century. I declare an interest as a member of the Liberal Party, which grew out of the alliance between the Whigs and the non-conformists.

We need to have a debate on what our national narrative now is. The other week I was in a seminar, off the record, with a fairly senior Conservative MP who said, “We can’t discuss the SDSR until we’ve decided who we are and where we think we are in the world—and we don’t know”. That is a real problem, and we all recognise that that is part of our problem. We need to get back to the question of what Britain is about. We have several contradictory narratives at the present moment. The excellent report on soft power produced by the British Academy earlier this year called itself something like the power of attraction—and that is fine, but, actually, the power of attraction means that we have enormous numbers of people of all backgrounds and levels of attainment wanting to come and live in Britain, which is something that we know many of our public no longer want to have. They want Britain to be a rather more closed society.

Part of our open society is that we accept that foreigners can buy whatever they want in Britain, and part of the popular reaction against globalisation in Britain is a sense that somehow we are losing our own country. So there is popular disillusionment with rapid change and continuing immigration. That suggests that politicians, churchmen and public intellectuals need to open a much more active debate about national identity. Gordon Brown as Prime Minister made one or two speeches on this, but we need to think about where we go from here. I am a member of the advisory board on the commemoration of World War I, and part of what we are trying to do through the programme of commemoration is to remind people where we came from. We did not stand alone; the Commonwealth, particularly the Indian Army, the West Indies Regiment and others, were all part of where we evolved from, into the multiracial society we are today.

Of course, it is also a matter of a national narrative and a sense of national identity that is changing and developing. Yesterday, I had an argument with a young woman, an official from the Foreign Office, who was being a little rude about the attitude to women in developing countries, and I reminded her that 75 years ago attitudes to women in this country were also pretty backward-looking from our current perspective. The transformation of the role and status of women over the past two to three generations in Britain and the other western states has been one of the most wonderful things that we have developed. Now we are trying to transfer those new British values to the rest of the world, and we recognise that the role of women is one of the keys to economic and social development—and also, incidentally, to population limitation. I pay tribute to the Foreign Secretary and the International Development Secretary for the work that they have done, including the work on the prevention of sexual violence against women—and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, whom we have just welcomed into the House.

There is a lot more to do in this area. I am very happy to say that BIS now has a UK student outward mobility strategy, which was launched last year because British people do not go abroad enough. Lots of people come here, but we do not pay enough attention to making sure that our younger generation understands the rest of the world.

Multilateral work is how we have to approach much of soft power. There is little we can do on our own. We work closely with others. In South Sudan, for example, Britain and Norway are the joint chairs of one of the frameworks through which we try to negotiate, working closely with the African Union and the Arab League, doing our best to draw on Chinese participation wherever we can. International NGOs and NGOs based in Britain play a very valuable part in our endeavour. They are part of the soft power projection for Britain. Of course, we are very worried about the shrinking of space for NGOs to operate with Russia and in many other countries, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Commonwealth has also been mentioned—the language, culture and history—but, fundamentally, the rule of law, which we need to make as much as we can of, with India and South Africa in some ways as our key partners. The successful development of the rule of law in that regard is flawed but, nevertheless, is making real progress.

I have many more notes but I shall be as rapid as I can. We welcome the role of the churches in promoting tolerance and understanding among faiths as well as within each faith community, and in talking about different paths to God, particularly among the three faiths of the Book—Judaism, Islam and Christianity. I note that Ibrahim—Abraham—is now becoming one of the more popular boys’ names in Britain. That should remind people that these are not entirely incompatible traditions. The Government can assist in this regard. There are now university centres for Islamic theology and one needs to take that further. I take the opportunity to praise the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for the work she did, and the speeches she made, on tolerance to Muslim audiences in Istanbul, Oman and Kuala Lumpur as well as for the speeches she made in Washington and Rome on interfaith understanding. That work, and the work on human rights, is being continued by my noble friend Lady Anelay.

A number of noble Lords talked about student visas and the whole problem with visas. We recognise that we have a problem. That is partly because so many people want to come to Britain. However, applications for university student visas continue to rise, as does the student overseas population in Britain. There was an 18% increase in visas granted for skilled workers and a 14% increase in visitor visas last year, so we are not going backwards on that. However, we are struggling to meet the pressure resulting from the number of people wishing to enter Britain.

Some noble Lords mentioned the BBC World Service. It may be better if I write to them on that very large subject. On the economic side, the Prime Minister has made it entirely clear that we are concerned about finding the golden thread that links conflict-free development with prosperity—namely, the absence of war, getting rid of corruption, the establishment of the rule of law, decent government and having markets that work. That involves us in a great deal of co-operation with others in fighting international corruption and criminal regimes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, asked a number of questions, including whether the Government had undertaken a risk analysis of the implications of withdrawal from the ECHR. My clear answer is that of course we have not because the Government have no intention of leaving the ECHR, so no such analysis is necessary.

Ebola

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential to mobilise NATO resources against the Ebola epidemic.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, NATO has not formally discussed deploying resources against Ebola but is keeping the situation under review. NATO continues to support bilateral contributions by allies and wider international efforts. The UK is focused on working with the UN, the EU and other international partners to mobilise resources against the epidemic in west Africa. The Prime Minister will use this week’s European Council, which begins today, to agree a significant uplift in the efforts of the EU and member states as part of the UN co-ordinated response.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

I thank my noble friend for that reply. I had the privilege two weeks ago of hearing the Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, Mr Andrew Weber, who is also the chief adviser to the President on the Ebola issue, pointing out that the Ebola incidence was now increasing at a rate where it was doubling every quarter. In that case he said that the absolutely essential element was speed. The only organisation with the speed, the resources and the manpower to act as quickly as may be required is NATO. I therefore ask my noble friend whether the Prime Minister will consider speed as all-important and might therefore reach the conclusion that NATO should be more closely involved.

Qatar: Migrant Workers

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Monks, in raising this issue. Qatar as a relatively progressive Arab state is in a position to give an example to many others around it, not least in the other Trucial states. In addition to the very high levels of fatalities and casualties on building sites, there is a steady flow of wounds and sometimes fatal injuries suffered by women working as domestic labour in the Trucial states, not least as nurses, cooks and nannies. May I therefore strongly support the argument that the United Kingdom Government, who have a special status among the Trucial states, should continue constructively to press Qatar to give the example that it could give to treat migrants in the way that it treats its own citizens?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising the question of domestic labour, which is also an issue across the GCC. In the UK’s contribution to the debate at the UN Human Rights Council, our representative made two recommendations; first, to:

“Reform the sponsorship system, removing the requirement for foreign workers to obtain permission before leaving Qatar or moving jobs”,

and, secondly, to:

“Reform the Labour laws to ensure domestic workers are legally protected and to improve the enforcement of these laws ensuring the rights of foreign workers in Qatar are guaranteed”.

Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I continue to learn how close church links can be across national boundaries. I was in Armenia some months ago and was met by a very chatty archbishop, who seemed to know almost every bishop I had ever met in this country. However, we all know that the Orthodox Church in and across the former Soviet Union is a very complex and divided entity, and not all its branches are committed to anything that we would recognise as a liberal approach to organised religion. Sadly, the different branches of the church in Ukraine represent that rather well.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, I had the honour to be one of those who advised the Ukrainian republic at the moment of its independence from Russia, and I have kept closely in touch with it ever since. I begin by saying—I shall not be long—that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is absolutely right in indicating that the way in which Ukraine has been desperately trying to find security and, not least, to strengthen its relationships with the EU is an astonishing statement of trust in the EU. Perhaps it is time that we recognised that rather more than we sometimes do. It is a statement of belief in the future of a united Europe.

Perhaps I may ask one question of a practical kind. Outside the realm of governmental relations, how far does the Minister believe that in relations on a cultural level, on a religious level—indeed, with the appointment of Pope Francis possibly much more easily than in the past—and, not least, on an educational level we could establish a much stronger and more helpful relationship with Ukraine than we have done without putting at risk its relationship with Russia? I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, that that relationship should not be made into a military one. I believe that there is much ground here for extensive and helpful relations between this country and what I hope will, before long, be the emerging democracy of Ukraine.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I did not answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, about military alliances. Across what the EU has called the “eastern neighbourhood”, we are aware that some countries—for example, Georgia—have a stated ambition to join NATO, and that is another delicate set of issues with which we will all have to deal. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that I think I beat her to help the new Ukrainian Government. The John F Kennedy School of Government asked for a Wallace to go to a conference in Kiev in December 1991. I found it almost surreal talking to a newly independent Government about the attributes of statehood that they suddenly found themselves having. I know that the noble Baroness, with the rest of the Kennedy school and others, then took over a much more detailed programme.

We are, of course, entirely open to cultural and educational relations. We very much want to work with Ukraine. I have no doubt that the British Council and others will wish to be engaged in as much assistance to Ukraine as possible—in particular, helping it to develop a much clearer concept of the rule of law and of the importance of law in every aspect of the economy, society and government.

Iran

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, my understanding is that under a UN Security Council resolution, the noble Baroness was designated as the co-ordinator for these negotiations. This has been an EU exercise with the three largest Governments within the European Union, in effect, representing the EU. The noble Baroness has to some extent represented the interests of the other 25 member states and I know that she has put an enormous amount of effort into this as well.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for repeating the Statement and, if I may say so, for his own contribution to the work of the Foreign Office team, for the outstanding work of the Foreign Secretary and Mr Kerry and, not least, for the really great steps taken—one has to add this—by the Iranian Foreign Secretary in trying to bring about an agreement, with what was perhaps the significant support of the supreme ruler in Iran. It is the outbreak of common-sense discussion, real wisdom and a real desire to avoid war which has driven this remarkable agreement. I say to my noble friend that this is a remarkable moment in history. Of course, it is not the end but the beginning of a crucial set of steps towards bringing Iran back into the comity of nations and enabling us to produce a new structure that will give both the IAEA and the protection from nuclear proliferation an extremely important new impetus.

Perhaps I may say one other word, which is that I hope that the naysayers of this world—those who are likely to oppose this agreement—will recognise that the alternatives are terrible ones. They are in either military action or going back to absolute chaos in the Middle East. At a time when many of us are grieving over the terrible cost of the invasion of Iraq and, for that matter, the long war in Afghanistan, this is a moment when we should recognise the achievement of diplomacy and sensible discussion, as distinct from attempts to threaten other countries.

I have two questions. First, I do not in any way disagree with the questions asked so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, but it is crucial to recognise as well that we need to build on the elements coming out of this agreement that would so massively strengthen the battle against proliferation of nuclear weapons. I ask my noble friend whether the addition of the concept of enhanced monitoring that has come out of this agreement is one that, in his own view, could be extended more readily throughout the whole nuclear proliferation issue, along with the remarkable steps taken by the IAEA towards a much more powerful regime, including in effect the additional protocol, which up till now Iran has not been willing to sign.

My second question is whether the creation of the so-called committee of the E3 plus 3 with Iran might enable us to begin to build the first of new relationships with this isolated but intensely important country, which will enable it to make a serious contribution to the Syrian civil war. In that context, there are cultural, religious and economic links that could be made with Iran that would help to bring it in from the cold and build on the hopeful measures towards a more open and democratic Iran, as we have seen in the past few months.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Baroness for her compliments to the Foreign Secretary and others. We hope that this will prove to have been a remarkable moment in history, but we do not yet know; the test will be in the negotiations that take place over the next year. There is no doubt that sanctions and the extent to which they were biting in Iran have played a major part in shifting opinions in the Iranian regime in all its complexity, and certainly among the Iranian public.

In response to the noble Baroness’s questions, of course we would like to see a tougher, enhanced IAEA regime that spreads to others. I suspect that the noble Baroness knows a great deal more about this than I do, since I know that she has been involved in a lot of international discussions on this matter. That is one of the things that could grow out of these negotiations. The joint commission will, of course, be concerned with implementing the agreement. The first visit of the chargé already appointed is likely to take place in the next few weeks, and we may hope that, from that, other relationships may grow—but that will be something that we all have to work for as we work through these still complex and delicate negotiations.

Nuclear War: International Conference

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the valuable contribution that the Norwegians and others have been making on this whole question of the humanitarian and, incidentally, climatic consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon are very much something that the UK Government are taking seriously. We see this as a very useful expert contribution. Looking at how, if there were to be—heaven forfend—a nuclear explosion, we would cope as an international community with the consequences, is something that is very valuable to take forward.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

Does my noble friend agree that there was very substantial political support for the United Nations resolution on working on methods of dealing with nuclear disarmament, and in particular that although half of the NATO members voted in favour of that resolution, the United Kingdom and the P5, with the exception of China, all voted against it? Perhaps I may remind him that the United Kingdom has established a substantial record—perhaps the leading record among the P5—for work on specific actions such as the verification principle that has given us a great reputation on this issue. We might put that at risk if we do not recognise the strength of the pressures from not only the United Nations but many of our allies in this respect.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is an extremely serious area of international security that we take very seriously. We are worried about some of these conferences where it is easier to pass resolutions than to accept that we need, for example, to control: the storage of fissile materials; the creation of additional fissile material; and the potential trade in fissile material. This is what the currently blocked fissile material cut-off treaty is about, and what the nuclear security summit next year will also be concerned with.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, with as much trepidation as I did some 40 years ago when as a young civil servant I followed him round some rather poor parts of west Africa on a ministerial swing, a trip that I suspect may have influenced both him and me in spending a good part of the rest of our lives in dealing with development issues.

I would like briefly to comment on Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill, and on procedure. On Part 1, first, I echo what some others have said this evening: lobbying, whether by NGOs, churches or companies, can be a valuable, necessary and, indeed, inevitable part of our democracy. In my own experience, much legislation and some policies with which I have been involved have been brought forward without consultation and as a result have been flawed. I have to say that Part 2 of this Bill is rather a good example of that.

However, such lobbying must be open and transparent and must be made public. I am not talking about just lobbying by consultant lobbyists. Like others, I am puzzled by the Bill’s exclusive focus on consultant lobbyists. The coverage surely needs to be wider than that. I am also puzzled by the exclusive focus on Permanent Secretaries and Ministers. I have a certain respect for both Permanent Secretaries and Ministers but I am not naive and the focus surely needs to be much wider than that, and include political advisers, directors-general, directors and, for example, anyone in a team working on a new Bill who might be instructed to report any approaches from lobbyists to their director or director-general. The important thing is that this is done.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord but does he agree that the Permanent Secretary is probably almost the last civil servant to be lobbied in a controversial situation?

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

I entirely agree. Indeed, any lobbyist worth his or her salt is going to make quite certain that they lobby somebody slightly lower down the scale, and by the time the piece of legislation or the policy gets to the Permanent Secretary or the Minister, the damage may well have been done. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness.

In this context, I particularly liked the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Norton—if I have understood him rightly—of shifting the focus in this part of the Bill from the lobbyist to the person being lobbied, with some mechanism to ensure that that lobbying is made public when the Bill or the policy is made public. That seems a rather simpler approach than that in the Bill at the moment. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that and I hope that that idea can be considered further.

On Part 3 of the Bill, if the aim is to catch the transatlantic political sharks of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, as they approach our shores, as seems to be the case, we must find some way of ensuring that our NGOs do not get caught in that net. I recognise that the Government have tried to reflect some of the concerns that NGOs have expressed but, as our e-mail inboxes have shown in the past few days, they have not succeeded. To leave open the possibility that NGOs decide not to continue their activity in a full year before an election or have to spend on complying with new bureaucracy time and money which donors rightly expect should be going to the front line—to the poor, the sick, the elderly and the homeless—is quite simply wrong and contrary to some basic constitutional principles of freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

On procedure, I much regret that the Bill was not subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. A Bill with clear constitutional—indeed, electoral—implications is just the sort of Bill that deserves and requires full and proper pre-legislative scrutiny. It is perhaps too late for that to happen now, but I ask the Minister to think seriously about ensuring that Part 2, at least, even at this late stage, gets the kind of proper consultation with those whom it may seriously affect that it so badly needs. That would surely be time well spent.