Armed Forces Deployment (Royal Prerogative) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Friday 8th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

And I am just as naughty because I oppose the convention as well.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that his problem is one for the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to deal with—not me. But I completely accept the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, which were voiced by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as well. But, ultimately, either we trust MPs to do a job and have access to the information or we do not.

The concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan—I am grateful to him; I know that he was a Minister for the Armed Forces and is therefore very knowledgeable and has huge experience in these matters—was that if the wrong decision was taken, parliamentary approval would not negate that. That is right; I completely agree with him. But the point that I am making is that although Parliament might not negate that, the country would not need to listen, as it did three days ago, to someone saying, “I take complete responsibility, but that is it, and I would not have changed anything that I did”. If the House of Commons was consulted, and if the country moved away from that decision, the country would have the ability to kick those people out at the next general election. In that sense, there is a direct line of accountability—the golden thread.

I am so grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for having spoken—I count her as a friend, as well as somebody for whose legal prowess I have huge admiration. She supports the Lords Constitution Committee but she does not like the current convention of Parliament being consulted. But the Lords Constitution Committee supports the status quo ante. It wants Parliament to be consulted along the current method; it just does not want codification in the Bill. But of course these are details that we can move to in Committee, should that come to pass. I do not intend to detain the House very much longer.

I express huge gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the Labour Party for their support. In public life, a lot of decisions are not straightforward and all of us, on all sides, sometimes take the wrong decisions. Sometimes we were culpable, sometimes the information was not accurate, and sometimes the imperative to move quickly took us to that potentially wrong decision. But what is really important, and what the country needs to hear from us now, is that we are learning from decisions that we have taken in the past. I think that the position of the Labour Party, which is so very welcome, is that there is an indication that things went wrong and that it has learned, as we all have. One of the things Mr Cameron said in the Chilcot debate was that he took responsibility for his own vote. I thought that was important.

The most important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, was that the reason the Labour Party supports this small, modest measure is that it recognises that this underpins the need for the Government to show that they draw their powers from the people. That is terribly important.

The Minister has been incredibly gracious and kind to me in having engaged in some discussion. We did not agree. We come from different positions. I come from a party that is internationalist in its outlook, trusts the people to the nth degree and takes its responsibilities as parliamentarians extremely seriously—which is not to suggest that other parties do not. Indeed, I mentioned Edmund Burke, and the Minister will know how important he was for Conservative Governments in historical times. The Minister raised some exceptions that are entirely valid, and I look forward to engaging with him privately, as he has invited me to come to talk to him, and as we move into Committee. But the point I do not understand is how this Bill ties the Government’s hands. The contrary criticism I am getting from NGOs—38 Degrees was mentioned, along with others—is that the Bill is too flexible and does not tie the Government’s hands enough. There are people who want to hold the Government’s feet to the fire and think that this Bill is too grown-up, too considered and too reflective to do that.

I do not wish to weary the House any more. We hope to move on. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord made a slight mistake. He did not beg to move; we can just carry on debating the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I will comment briefly on this point. In his closing remarks the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, asked an interesting question that is posed frequently: where there is a tie-break, as I would refer to it, what should be done if there are two candidates of supposedly equal merit, one of whom is a woman and the other, for example, is from an ethic minority? I note that the report of the Constitution Committee gives a lot of assistance in how we should define merit but makes the point that, certainly in large-scale selection processes, there could conceivably be candidates who end up in a tie-break: in other words, who are assessed to be of equal merit.

It would be quite straightforward to apply the test in those circumstances. You would look to see which group is more underrepresented than the other group and, in the case where there are two from underrepresented groups, appoint the one that was not to be found there. That would be fairly straightforward. With more senior appointments, it is entirely conceivable that it would be much clearer. We have heard that there is one female and no ethnic minority member of the current Supreme Court. In that case, it would be fairly straightforward, if the candidates were tied and came out equally in an assessment, you would go for the ethnic minority candidate. Although you would want to increase the gender diversity, on such an occasion, you would need to increase the diversity overall.

I also make the point to the noble and learned Lord that blatantly nobody is seeking to have the senior judiciary reflect the people they serve, because the people they serve on the whole are there, particularly in criminal cases, because they have done wrong. Nobody is suggesting that. However, the Constitution Committee’s report makes clear, as do a lot of other reports, that in senior positions in life it is terribly important for an inclusive society to have people who are representative of different strands of society as a whole. I rest my case there.

Saudi Arabia: Driving Licences

Debate between Earl Attlee and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, on the substantive question about recognition or non-recognition of Saudi driving licences, the noble Baroness will recognise that we are under a treaty obligation in terms of the international circulation order. However, we welcome King Abdullah’s overturning of the recent sentence of lashing for a woman convicted of driving. It is well known that this Government, like their predecessor, have particular concern about some aspects of human rights protection in Saudi Arabia, most notably women’s rights. The UK has consistently called for women in Saudi Arabia to be able to participate fully in society. That means removing legal and cultural barriers, like the guardianship system and the ban on women driving.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia, of course, has nothing to do with theology or Islam and has everything to do with the desire of men in Saudi Arabia to remain guardians of women—in other words, discrimination? Will he tell the House how the United Kingdom voted when Saudi Arabia was elected on to the executive board of UN Women, the agency for gender equality and empowerment for women? If he does not have the answer with him, perhaps he might write to me saying how the UK voted?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has asked me quite a detailed question, and I am afraid that I shall have to write to her.

Immigration (Designation of Travel Bans) (Amendment) Order 2011

Debate between Earl Attlee and Baroness Falkner of Margravine

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for giving us an opportunity to exercise our scrutiny function rather better by putting some very apposite and relevant questions on the table about the statutory instruments. We Liberal Democrats welcome the imposition of a travel ban on Muammur Gaddafi and his family and certain other Libyan government officials, which has allowed the implementation of the UK’s obligations under the UN Security Council resolutions in response to the situation in Libya.

I, like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, am concerned about the practical implication of the implementation of these statutory instruments. We undoubtedly agree that we must guarantee that the excluded persons watch-list, which will be used both by staff overseas and at UK ports, identifies accurately people who are not to be admitted to the UK, and I hope that any individual who is subject to the ban and who entered the UK by deception, and so is in breach of the travel ban, will be identified and treated as an illegal entrant and will be subject to appropriate action before the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, if that applies. I say that advisedly because, having looked at the list of people who are covered by the United Nations travel ban, and given that the International Criminal Court’s criminal prosecutor is expected to make an announcement in September, the months leading up to then will be when these people will attempt to flee to safe havens if they choose to do so.

I am concerned to read that the ban could also be lifted in very limited circumstances, and I wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister will tell us in what circumstances the ban could be lifted here in the UK and what procedures we would go through for it to be lifted. I also wonder whether there has been any record of an individual who is as yet subject to the travel ban and who has been arrested in the UK or who is known to have connections to the UK and might already be here.

On the asset-freezing regulations, I thank, through the Minister, his noble friend Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint for his extensive response to me, in a letter dated 1 April 2011, on the travel order. It clarified a lot of my questions about how the asset-freezing regulations would be implemented in the UK. I am further pleased to note that the UK asset freezes will not be limited to assets that are held only in the name of Muammur Gaddafi, that there are several other designated individuals and that the list continues to be updated.

The issue for me is the extent to which Libyan state entities, or entities that have links to the Libyan state but that might not be official state entities, should be regarded as directly or indirectly owned or controlled by the Gaddafi family acting on behalf of, or on the direction of, members of the Gaddafi family. I know that the Treasury has issued guidance that the financial sector and other persons should bear in mind that Muammur Gaddafi and his family have considerable control over the Libyan state and its enterprises in deciding how to conduct proper due diligence over any transaction that involves Libyan state assets. Although we welcome the guidance, I have to say to the Treasury—I have raised this previously—that it seems to us that UK financial institutions are not really clear as to how to deal with freezing the assets of individuals rather than of readily identifiable state organisations or commercial enterprises. That issue has gone on over the years and I would like to record some concern that Treasury guidance does not seem to be more specific. You speak to people in the banks who tell you that they have very limited means of identifying individuals because the money is laundered in so many different ways before it arrives here. Perhaps we need to invest, through HMRC or some other body—I cannot identify the body—a little more in clearer intelligence about all those front organisations that use the City of London and other European centres to launder assets.

I conclude by saying that it is important to know that those sanctions and regimes differ from one another and from a US sanctions regime, and that people who are involved in moving their assets around, particularly when there are these sorts of asset freezes, are capable of hiring smart white-collar advisers to tell them how to buck the rules in one regime to another. I hope that here in the UK, not least to safeguard our reputation on money laundering, the Government ensure that companies monitor the position and keep abreast of new legislation, new designations and potentially new licences.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am very grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has asked the Committee to consider the travel ban amendment order and the Libya (Asset-Freezing) Regulations that were laid in February. Normally such technical measures attract little comment, but as the noble Lord says, they concern important matters of public policy. It is therefore only right that the Committee has the opportunity to learn more about the scope and purpose of such amendments and instruments and to question the Government about the circumstances that give rise to them.

These instruments are part of the Government’s wider strategy to put pressure on the Gaddafi regime through the full implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and EU instruments. Noble Lords were able to explore something of this wider strategy on 26 April when my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford repeated the Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. I have no doubt, given the fast moving and appalling events unfolding in north Africa and in the Middle East, that there will be many such further opportunities to question the Government about our country’s response. I am therefore sure that noble Lords will understand if I say that on this occasion I intend to focus on the subject of the noble Lord’s Motion rather than on the wider strategy. I should also point out that yesterday the EU imposed sanctions on 13 Syrian officials, although I am not yet fully briefed on those sanctions. However, the Government will make similar UK orders using the same methodology as the Libyan regulations.

Noble Lords will be aware that UN Security Council Resolution 1970 was issued on 26 February as the international community’s response to the gross and systemic violation of human rights and international humanitarian law in Libya and the crimes that were and still are being perpetrated by Gaddafi and his supporters on his own population. The resolution placed a number of obligations on UN member states. Two of these—on travel bans and asset freezing—resulted in the implementing measures that were laid before the House in February and which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought to the attention of the Committee. Before saying something about these measures, noble Lords may be aware that they were the first of several travel ban and asset-freezing instruments that have come into force since the end of February in response to events in Libya. There have been a total of three travel ban amendment orders.

Taking the measures listed in the noble Lord’s Motion in turn, I shall first address the travel ban order. When travel bans are imposed on particular named individuals as part of a UN Security Council resolution or EU Council instrument, the UK is obliged, except in very limited circumstances, to refuse these individuals entry to or transit through the UK. There are a number of ways of achieving this. The most effective way is for the Government to add the resolution to the schedule of the Immigration (Designation of Travel Bans) Order 2000. That is done by means of an amendment order.