Ukraine

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is time. We will take Labour and then the Liberal Democrats.

Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[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

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[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

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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.

Russia: Non-Governmental Organisations

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Russia is at present moving away from the principles of open society. That is deeply concerning to all of us. We continue to express our deep concerns about that, and our concern that this does not allow for the long-term stability of Russia itself, every time we meet our Russian counterparts.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, while I agree strongly with some of the remarks made by my noble friend the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, at present the Council of Europe is very much engaged in close discussions with the Russian authorities and some questions are being raised about whether the draconian law will be carried out effectively or reconsidered. May I therefore suggest that the better approach at present is probably through the Council of Europe, of which Russia is a member, dedicated as it is to all the values and ideals of democracy, rather than an individual national protest by the United Kingdom when the President of Russia is just about to arrive here?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is, I think, the only EU member state that has a bilateral human rights dialogue with the Russians. We have had it for some years and we think it is valuable. The EU itself has collectively expressed its concerns at the current Russian situation. Our counterparts in the German and French Governments, whose German party political foundation offices and Alliance Française have been raided and inspected in Russia, have also expressed their concerns.

Government: Commercial Lobbying of Ministers

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there has been an inquiry on the Werrity affair, and I was not aware that we needed a further inquiry on it. The Government are committed to as much transparency as possible, not only in ministerial meetings—I assure the noble Lord that it relates to people as far down the food chain as me, in terms of what is required about my diary being published—but in the funding that is provided for various activities.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I fully welcome the steps taken by the Prime Minister. Will my noble friend agree that a further move toward a register of lobbyists would be extremely useful in controlling what has become a very fast-moving interest group in the field of politics? Will he also agree that this would make an inquiry of the kind requested by the noble Lord, Lord Low, very much more straightforward?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the coalition Government are committed to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, and will publish proposals in the form of a consultation document next month.

European Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I, too, add my warm thanks to the Ministers for the extremely gracious and thoughtful way in which they have responded to issues in this House. In particular, I thank the Minister for his willingness to spend some time meeting people personally to discuss their particular problems when he is an extremely busy man with a heavy ministerial list, as indeed is his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I do not want to detain the House either, beyond thanking them very much and saying one other word following the noble Lord, Lord Williamson.

There are issues in the amendments that this House has passed which would improve the Bill very considerably. I hope that the Ministers will think quite carefully before trying to oppose them completely, because they would bring about a degree of consensus across the House that would be extremely valuable for our future relations with Europe, about which the Minister has already spoken eloquently. We welcome what he has said about that. I hope that the Government will take away from this at least a willingness to consider whether it might not improve the Bill to accept some of these amendments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are on the edge, between being in order or out of order. Perhaps I might repeat my noble friend’s request that the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, might now care to withdraw his amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, rightly pointed out that we are edging away from Third Reading and into Bill do now pass. I therefore suggest that we allow my noble friend to move the Motion that the Bill do now pass.

European Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, my point is even briefer. Can the Minister give a little explanation of the Motion being “without amendment”? For example, if there were to be a relatively small, technical amendment, would it in fact mean that parliamentary approval was withheld? Perhaps the Minister could say a little more on that point: why the stress on “without amendment”?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, perhaps I may start by answering the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. If I am correct—I am not an expert on parliamentary procedure—I think that on SIs we have to approve a Motion without amendment. I will take advice and write to her on that subject but I do not think it is a major issue.

Clause 10 is a proposal for light-touch parliamentary scrutiny of decisions taken in the European Union. The requirement for each House to pass a Motion is either an invitation for each House to accept that this is not significant, or so clearly in Britain's national interest that we should let it go by, or it is an invitation for the scrutiny committees to pay some attention and then bring a Motion to each House.

On the question of proposals for judges and Advocates-General, these matters have been covered by an excellent report from the House of Lords Scrutiny Committee, to which Her Majesty's Government will reply in good time. We do not see that this in any sense provides a greater obstacle to a decision one way or another; it merely underlines the desirability of Parliament being aware of what is happening and being required to say either, “Yes, this is fine”, or, “We’re not entirely sure and we require an explanation on each of these various administrative and other issues”.

Having I hope reassured the House on that, I hope that the House will accept that Clause 10 should stand part.

European Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Taverne and I have a difficulty. A number of speeches addressing this group of amendments have moved somewhat between the groups. There have been references to later amendments. We are not quite sure whether this debate is meant to comprise the list of things being put forward by the Front Bench of the Labour Party, including this amendment as well as the others that fall within the same general area, or whether we are supposed to limit ourselves entirely to the single market. In that case, a great many speeches have been rather close to being out of order. Perhaps the Government will indicate whether they wish this debate to be limited to the single market or to take a number of these amendments together, in which case my noble friend Lord Taverne and I both wish to say something.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, recognised, and perhaps I may suggest, as this group and the groups that follow cover similar themes one might talk about this group and those that follow, which will save time later when we get to the others.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I am grateful for that, which is exactly my view. Perhaps I might refer to what the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said. I also associate those concepts with some of the later amendments. I will not keep the House for long. The noble Lord’s good argument was made strongly on the basis of the need in some cases for urgent decisions to be made. He pointed out that the formal procedures are long-winded and slow and that therefore in some cases it would be irrelevant to the issue that had come up because it would take so long to deal with the procedures.

I now refer to a second group of amendments, which is what I might call the Canute group. What is the Canute group? Those of us who remember the early history of Britain will remember that the king at the time ordered the tide to turn back. In other words, he insisted on not seeing the world as it is. The amendments in this group are about insisting—

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am happy to confirm that this Government, like the previous Government, accept that academy schools are public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act and that, consequently, they are under a duty to act compatibly with the convention rights in their dealings with parents, pupils and others. The Act does not spell out or list all possible public authorities. This is for an obvious reason: some private bodies also carry out limited public functions and, for the purposes of those public functions, they are also public authorities, but only in respect of those functions. It is not possible to identify all of them at all times. Nevertheless, when they are providing a public service—schooling—they are clearly public authorities.

The noble Baroness will know that academies will be required to comply with all the duties in the Equality Act that apply to schools more generally with respect to disability, non-discrimination, reasonable adjustments and the like. It is quite correct that academies are not currently listed in Schedule 19. However, Schedule 19 will be updated before the duties come into force in 2011, and academies will be included in time for that. This will also deal with the suggestion in Amendment 81 that an academy should be a public authority for the purpose of the Equality Act. I regret that I do not have immediate information on the inclusion of independent schools. I hope that the noble Baroness will allow us to write to her on that issue.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I am very grateful and, in view of that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.