Chinese Consulate: Attack on Hong Kong Protesters

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point, but it is one to which I cannot respond with any degree of authority or detail. We have to wait until the investigation is complete before knowing for sure what took place at the protest, and whatever actions follow will result from that clearer understanding.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my non-financial interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Hong Kong and on Uyghurs, and as a patron of Hong Kong Watch. This question is about grievous bodily harm, which has been done to a peaceful protester who has had to be hospitalised. It is about the Chinese Communist Party believing that it is above the law and can act with impunity on British soil. It is about the importation of CCP brutality, which has so disfigured the lives of the peoples of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan, and Chinese citizens who have dared to question the tyranny of the one-party state. It is also about the contagious spread of CCP cadres, whether they are intimidating students on our campuses and subverting institutions and even, as our intelligence agency has pointed out, CCP spies working in the precincts of our Parliament.

The key question for the Minister tonight is that, once this investigation has been completed—and we all welcome the work that is being done by the Greater Manchester Police force—if it shows that Consul-General Zheng Xiyuan, Consul Gao Lianjia, Counsellor Chen Wei and Deputy Consul-General Fan Yingjie, who were all directly involved in attacking peaceful protesters in Manchester, will the Government ensure that they will be treated as persona non grata forthwith and told to pack their bags? To do anything less would devalue the currency of our belief in free speech and the right to protection while peacefully expressing dissent.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a powerful intervention. However, it is simply not possible for me to respond in any detail until those inquiries are completed. Once they are and we know what happened, it would then be for the Government to respond appropriately.

The noble Lord makes an important point. Peaceful protest is an absolutely core part of a democratic society. It is a long-standing tradition in this country. People are free to gather to demonstrate their views, and to do so knowing that they will not be punished as a consequence. As the noble Lord knows, that is not true all around the world. However, it is very precious and we will continue to defend it.

The noble Lord has done some sterling work for those from Hong Kong fleeing persecution. I hope he will agree with me that the Government have stood by those citizens of Hong Kong who face persecution. We have been very clear that China remains in an ongoing state of non-compliance with the Sino-British joint declaration.

I was looking for the latest figure for the number of people who have come over from Hong Kong—as I say that, I find them. There have been 140,000 applications, with 133,000 granted. That is a reflection of the value that the British people and Government place on our friends in Hong Kong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, that depends on what is discovered. It may well be, as noble Lords are implying, that this was an egregious act of wrongdoing. If that is the case, the Government will respond accordingly and, at that point, our conversation and interaction with China and Chinese representatives would change. However, at this point, it would be premature for me to map out a course of action.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister ensure that he takes a look at the video material that is available? It shows the protester being dragged into the consulate grounds. What happened to the protester is all on film. This is not us becoming angry about what someone said might have happened; it can be seen very clearly.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I have seen the images captured on video. All I would say is that there has to be a process. This is a very serious incident. If noble Lords’ fears are confirmed, obviously the situation will be escalated, as it must be. It is incumbent on the Government, before they respond, to they know absolutely the facts on the ground.

Pakistan: Flood Relief

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend speaks with great insight; indeed, I understand that she visited Pakistan very recently. Of course, it is clear that the challenges are immense: there is no doubt about that. I have spoken directly to Pakistani Ministers, including Hina Rabbani Khar, to identify the specific immediate needs and the medium to long-term needs. There is a need for infrastructure investment in bridges. More than 3,500 kilometres of road have been swept away. In the previous response, the funding my noble friend alluded to included infrastructure support for bridges, for example. Those needs are being identified. I spoke to Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed at the end of last week and I have been direct contact with Secretary-General António Guterres, who is visiting Pakistan tomorrow. There will be another assessment of immediate, medium and long-term needs. We are engaging directly with the UN and other authorities in that respect, and as I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I will update the House.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, in thanking the Minister for the personal and deep interest he has taken in this. I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pakistani Minorities and vice-chair of the country group on Pakistan.

My first question concerns Sind province, where Lake Manchar is in danger of overflowing and 100,000 people have already been displaced. It has already had to be breached in order to stop an even more catastrophic situation emerging. What news can the Minister give us about that? My second question concerns children and follows on from a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. UNICEF pointed out yesterday that 30% of water systems have been damaged, 17,500 schools have been damaged or destroyed, 16 million children have been affected, and 3 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance and are at risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera, and of drowning or malnutrition. Children are always most at risk after terrible catastrophes such as this. What priority are we giving to trying to ensure that their critical needs are met?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s point about Lake Manchar, we are watching that situation very carefully. He is of course correct that various efforts have been made to prevent the lake destroying the neighbouring lands, which are already flooded. I am fearful, given the forecasts. This was a catastrophic event; it was not just the monsoon rains but the glaciers that caused the flooding—the two things happened together. As the Minister in Pakistan, Hina Rabbani Khar, told me, it is the most vulnerable of communities, including children, who have been impacted. That is why we are working with NGOs on the ground and directly with UN agencies, and making our own assessments through the high commissioner, to identify the immediate needs in terms of sanitation, water and medicine in order to avert disease spreading. We are also looking at the medium-term needs of those vulnerable communities in particular to identify how, ultimately, once the floods have receded and some order is restored, we can get children back in school.

Ethiopia: Humanitarian and Security Situation

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his efforts in the wider region. The UK is a major humanitarian donor to the East African region. UK-funded activities are making a measurable difference to people’s lives. In the current financial year, we will have provided around £156 million in humanitarian aid across East Africa, £76 million of which has already been spent, and UK aid is helping millions of people access food, water and healthcare right now. We know from history that early intervention saves lives; that is why a few months ago—this year—£24 million in funding was announced for early action and support: a scaling up of assistance in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and Kenya. In April, we helped to bring states together at the UN drought round table, which mobilised around $400 million in new commitments for the region. The UK is providing a lot of finance, but we are also flexing, wherever possible, our diplomatic muscle and using the networks that we have built up.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea. Does the noble Lord agree that the malign role of Eritrean militias has undoubtedly exacerbated an already grievous situation? The conflict is spreading from Tigray to other ethnic groups and to neighbouring countries, with terrorist organisations such as al-Shabaab exploiting the instability. With an entire population, as the noble Lord has said, on the verge of starvation and death, how has the United Kingdom responded to the bombing of civilian targets, including in close proximity recently to the university in Mekelle, by galvanising the international community to end the weaponising of hunger and famine, rapes and gender-based violence and to bring those responsible to justice? Does he not agree that the scale of what is happening in Africa is directly comparable to the scale of what is happening in Europe, in Ukraine?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord has a long track record on these issues and I appreciate the very regular updates I get from him, all of which I transfer to my colleague in the other place in whose portfolio this sits. I know it is appreciated there as well. Millions of people in Ethiopia have been lifted out of poverty in recent years; it was a development success story. We all remember the horrors that created much of what we now regard to be the aid movement, but those gains that we saw are massively at risk today. The reality is that millions upon millions of people are now facing a return to base poverty—actual starvation —so this is of course a priority for us. We are working with all the international bodies that have a role to play, whether that is in preventing sexual violence or alleviating the immediate threats of starvation, and we are working through all the UN agencies. We are and remain an international development leader in Africa, notwithstanding the pressures on the ODA budget in the UK, and Africa will remain a priority for us.

Food Insecurity in Developing Countries due to Blockade of Ukrainian Ports

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

That this House takes note of (1) the impact of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports on food insecurity in developing countries, and (2) its contribution to the danger of famine in (a) the Horn of Africa, and (b) East Africa.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in opening today’s debate I should like to thank all noble Lords who are going to take part, especially the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, who will make his maiden speech. I couple those thanks with my thanks to the House of Lords Library, Dr Ewelina Ochab, the World Bank and others who have provided us with such excellent briefing material. I draw attention to my non-financial interests, including being a patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response and co-chair of the APPG on Eritrea.

Our debate is taking place as Russia, Iran, and Turkey, with its responsibility under the 1936 Montreux convention for naval traffic entering the Black Sea, have been meeting in Tehran. Turkey has proposed that Russia allows Ukrainian grain ships to leave Odessa on designated routes—grain corridors—so long as checks are made that the ships are not carrying arms. Beware Putin, broken promises, blackmail and Potemkin village scams.

This debate is also taking place against a backdrop of mass displacements, thousands of deaths and devastation, all unleashed by Putin’s war on Ukraine, with Europe left facing its worst energy and economic crisis since the 1940s. The war’s effects reverberate around the globe: food price inflation and supply disruptions from the war in Ukraine have left millions, in Africa especially, vulnerable to famine and starvation.

In 1988, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I visited Ukraine and met political and religious leaders, some of whom had spent nearly two decades in the Kremlin’s prison camps. It was inspiring to watch people lay flowers each day at the doors of churches closed by Stalin 40 years earlier. They proudly held aloft their blue and yellow flags of defiance. Putin’s deluded idea that these brave people would now line the streets with flowers, cheering the new imperial occupation and the reconquest of their country, simply beggars belief.

An abiding memory from that time is of conversations with families who had personally experienced Stalin’s Holodomor, which translates to “death by hunger”, and had occurred 50 years earlier from 1932 to 1933. Stalin’s Holodomor, like Putin’s today, was an entirely man-made catastrophe, leading to anything from 3.5 to 5 million deaths and is regarded by many historians as a genocide. The Holodomor was methodically planned and executed by denying the producers of the food the sustenance necessary for survival. It seems especially cruel and perverse to have used food as a genocidal weapon in the breadbasket of Europe.

While people were starving to death, the Soviet state stole over 4 million tonnes of Ukraine’s grain, enough to meet the needs of 12 million people in a year. As Ukrainians resorted to eating grass, acorns and even cats and dogs, Stalin banned any reference to famine. His decree of “Five Stalks of Grain” stated that anyone, even a child, caught taking produce from a collective field, could be shot or imprisoned for stealing socialist property. In 1933, 2,000 people were executed.

The Holodomor, also known as the Terror Famine, was caused by a dictator who wanted to replace Ukraine’s small farms with state-owned collectives and punish independence-minded Ukrainians who posed a threat to his totalitarian authority. Does that sound familiar? Today, in a mirror image of Stalin, it is Putin committing food terrorism by purposefully destroying Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure and stealing Ukrainian grain and agricultural machinery. Last week, we saw vivid footage of his militias setting fire to fields, scorching the earth and reducing crops to ash. Along with the blockading of ports, this is using food as a weapon of war—a war crime. The weaponising of mass hunger is straight out of Stalin’s playbook. Protocols added to the Geneva conventions state:

“Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited”.


The Rome statutes of the ICC codify it as a war crime and the 2018 Security Council Resolution 2417 condemned the use of food insecurity and starvation as a tactic of war and laid duties on the Secretary-General when such situations occur.

When the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who will reply to our debate, recently met Karim Khan QC, the ICC prosecutor, I wonder what he learned about the prosecution of those responsible for this and other war crimes, including the mass killings and atrocities in Mariupol, Bucha and elsewhere, the use of cluster munitions and much more besides. Notwithstanding vetoes, how are the Secretary-General and the UN Security Council holding Russia to account for its violation of Resolution 2417?

Putin’s militias and missile strikes have damaged and destroyed many farms, stocks of food and seeds, silos, warehouses, oil depots and agricultural machinery and equipment. Unharvested winter crops across many of the war-affected areas have resulted in an estimated $1.4 billion of damage. Will seized Russian assets be used to provide restitution and reconstruction?

In addition to destruction, there are credible reports of Putin’s military looting around 500,000 tonnes of grain from the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions—a third of the stocks required for sowing and domestic consumption. The grain is then shipped from the Russian-controlled Crimean port of Sevastopol and from the port of Berdyansk. To date, satellite imagery has identified 41 bulk carriers, mostly under Russian or Syrian flags, transporting plundered grain. The BBC says that in many instances these ships switch off their automatic identification system transponders to hide the origins of the looted food.

Now put this into context. The scale and nature of Ukraine and Russia’s role in global food supplies is phenomenal. As such, the lack of access to Ukraine’s grain has catastrophic global consequences. In 2021, the Russian Federation or Ukraine, or both, were ranked among the top three global exporters of wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed and sunflower oil. Agriculture and food represent almost 10% of Ukraine’s GDP. Last year Ukraine exported food products worth almost $28 billion to the world, including $7.4 billion-worth of food to the European Union.

As many as 25 countries import more than one-third of their wheat from the two countries. Some 400 million people in the world depend on grain from Ukraine. This raises long-term questions about the need for greater diversification and about overconsumption by us in some parts of the world.

The immediate crisis, however, is best understood by figures from the Ukrainian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which told me that 2021 saw a record-breaking grain harvest that collected 107 million metric tonnes, while so far this year Ukrainian farmers have threshed just 3.6 million tonnes of grain. Before the war, every month, Ukraine exported between 5 million and 6 million metric tonnes of agricultural products, 90% from the seaports on the Black Sea and the Azov Sea. In June, by using trucks, railways, rivers and its three Danube port terminals, which are all at capacity, it managed to export 2.1 million metric tonnes, but even with welcome adjustments it would take years to export the current stockpile of grain, let alone a new harvest, unless the sea routes can be reopened.

The war has also contributed adversely to a sharp rise in the cost of fertilisers and transportation. The cost of transporting one tonne of barley via the Romanian seaport of Constanta has risen from $40 to $160. Unsurprisingly, in May, the price index on cereal was up by 29.7% on May 2021 value, with wheat prices up on average by 56.2%. The UN food price index puts food prices at their highest since records began 60 years ago, with the World Bank reporting several countries introducing bans on the export of their wheat. This will all hit the poorest hardest. Between 2018 and 2020, Africa imported $3.7 billion-worth of wheat from Ukraine; some of those countries most dependent include Somalia, Libya, the Gambia, Mauritania, Tunisia and Eritrea.

As of June 2022, 89 million people, nearly one-third of the population, are food-insecure across east Africa, with pockets of famine-like conditions in Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan. The World Food Programme says that a record 345 million people across 82 countries are facing acute food insecurity; that is up from 276 million at the start of this year. Up to 50 million people in 45 countries are on the verge of famine and 880,000 are already living in famine-like conditions in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. The grain crisis has amplified an already precarious situation in an Africa beset by raging conflicts. Think of the man-made disaster in Tigray alone. It has amplified the drought, locusts and climate change that they all face. The OECD says that the cumulative impact will make it impossible to end hunger by the UN’s stated goal of 2030, and we can assume it will also add to the now 100 million displaced people—recent figures from the UNHCR—as they flee existing instability, riots and unrest. The International Committee of the Red Cross has scaled up its operations in 10 countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, and says that

“more than a quarter of Africa’s people—346 million—are facing a food security crisis”.

It describes it as an “alarming hunger situation”.

The World Food Programme, which has seen a 44% rise in its operating costs, warns of an “unprecedented hunger challenge”. Noble Lords should read the exchange of 9 June between the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee and the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, in which we warn that the war in Ukraine has left

“millions of people facing an impending famine and starvation.”

In reply, the Africa Minister said:

“It is President Putin’s responsibility to lift this blockade so that Ukraine’s food can feed the starving.”


Yes, but we too have responsibilities, not least under the genocide convention, as we see the serious risk of genocide and Putin imposes conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the group, in whole or in part. We also have responsibilities in the context of the cuts that we have made to our development and aid programmes. Never has the WFP’s funding gap been so wide. In 2021. the value of UK contributions to the WFP in east Africa stood at just over one-third of the 2018 value. In 2021, the value of contributions to the WFP in Somalia, where there are currently pockets of famine-like conditions, stood at just 9% of the 2018 value. In 2021, the value of contributions to the WFP in Sudan stood at 18% of 2019 funding. Does the scale of our response now meet the moment? No, it does not.

I hope the Minister will tell us what plans the Government have to increase humanitarian funding for food assistance programmes to reflect the increase in global food and fuel costs, which are driving up the operational costs of agencies such as the admirable World Food Programme. I hope he will elaborate on what plans we have to work through the G7 Global Alliance for Food Security to develop international solutions to the global food crisis. Specifically, is the £130 million pledge made to the World Food Programme on 24 June additional funding, and not to be diverted from other programmes? Can he confirm that, as indicated by Minister Cleverly on 5 July, the proportion to be provided as unearmarked funding will be additional to the FCDO’s core contribution to the World Food Programme?

For the sake of millions of beleaguered people in poor countries, beyond immediate famine relief, we must do all we can to help Ukraine survive this existential assault and restore its place as the breadbasket for millions of people. We must hotly dispute the outrageous, toxic Kremlin narrative that attempts to blame western democracies for food shortages and escalating prices. It may take years for Ukraine’s farm sector to fully recover from the invasion. Fields have been destroyed, poisoned or mined, and they have been cluttered with abandoned Russian trucks, tanks and munitions. Farmers’ livelihoods will be at risk if their ability to trade is not restored. There are practical things that can be done immediately; for instance, we should welcome and join the agreement signed on 29 June by Ukraine and the EU to speed up road freight transport and the opening of what the EU has called solidarity lanes to increase throughput at EU border checkpoints. We should also help in the development of GrainLine, a grain trading platform aimed at aligning supply and demand; then there is the railway system and the need for temporary grain elevators, all of which I am sure will be explored in this debate.

To conclude, this debate is an opportunity to reiterate our condemnation of Putin’s war; to shine a light on its consequences; to demand the withdrawal of his troops from Ukraine; to call for an end to the blockades of the Ukrainian ports and to relentlessly demonstrate how Putin has precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe through the worsening of world hunger, the use of starvation as a weapon of war and his complicity in a war crime. The message should go out loud and clear from this Parliament that consumer countries should not buy stolen, plundered Ukrainian grain; that we will document every illegal shipment of stolen grain and lay the evidence before the prosecuting authorities; that we will not be blackmailed by the Kremlin; and, in the absence of an agreement, that we will work with our allies under the auspices of the United Nations to open a Black Sea humanitarian corridor to enable functioning maritime routes for the export of Ukrainian agricultural goods. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the quality of a debate is determined by those who participate, and no one could have hoped for a better informed, knowledgeable, wise or humanity-related debate than the one we have had this afternoon. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said that it underlines the purpose of your Lordships’ House to be able to conduct debates of this kind, and I entirely agree.

No one will have been surprised by the passion and vigour with which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, responded to us today. He is a great example of how to conduct oneself as a Minister. I hope he was not making a valedictory statement in his closing remarks, because I hope he will go on being a Minister at the Dispatch Box in your Lordships’ House for a long time to come. He is also a deeply committed parliamentarian. Whether it is insights that he communicates from his mother, as he did in the recent FoRB conference, or today from his father, through some of the Urdu poets, I hope we will go on hearing those insights for a long time to come. We first met when I was in another place and a group of people came with the young Tariq Ahmad to persuade Members of Parliament to take the persecution of his Ahmadi community seriously. Happily, I responded positively, said that I would write to Ministers and did. Years later, he teasingly said to me, “Now you are getting your own back, because barely a day passes when I do not receive representations from you.” It was a great privilege, during the recent FoRB conference to chair one of the side events on the plight of the Ahmadi community.

In a way, that underlines what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said to us about our interdependence and how we are determined one against another all the time. Was it not Nelson Mandela who said, “A person is a person because of other people”? We are coexistent on this planet; we must learn to respect and to live alongside one another. In that sense, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, said about the dangers of self-sufficiency, but the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was right as well to say that, in times of war and conflict, that is not the only issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newham, rightly said in her excellent speech that we suffer from a sort of attention deficit if we are not careful and could have compassion fatigue. She talked about the inadequacy of our response, “a drop in the ocean”.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, talked about the need to live up to and to honour our commitment to the 0.7% spending target, a point made by a number of noble Lords during the debate. Back in 1970 as a student, I made my first speech in the student union on the subject of the General Assembly resolution on 0.7% and it was the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who did so much to ensure that that was enshrined in statute. It is a terrible tragedy to have reduced that funding. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans is right to remind us that this is not just about generosity and altruism; it is also in our self-interest to ensure that we retain those target figures and do what we can to alleviate the suffering of the poorest in our world today.

In his excellent maiden speech, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham reminded us of the connections between his diocese and the Salvation Army. He talked specifically about Uganda, his links with that part of Africa and the impact of the crisis on the life chances of young people. We all look forward to hearing many more speeches from him in the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Risby, reminded us in an excellent speech about the dangers of this spreading through instability and to many places, including Egypt about which he knows a great deal, and the impact of migration flows.

My noble friend Lord Hastings talked about waste. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, quite rightly told us that this is a crisis with a long history, and we have done far too little thinking about and developing how we see the role of food and how we avert crises of this kind from recurring.

My noble friend Lord Sandwich took us to Sudan. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, took us to Somaliland. I have great admiration for my noble friend and for the noble Lord, Lord Polak. I serve with my noble friend on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sudan and South Sudan. I have visited Darfur: 300,000 people died there during the genocide and 2 million people were displaced. This is happening all over again, and we must do more than we are doing to avert it.

Let me end with what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said to us about being the moral opposite of what Putin represents; we must do better than we have been doing. Our values are the values that matter in this world, but they do not come cheaply. They come at a price, and we are seeing that price, whether it is in the loss of human life or in treasure. They comes at a price, and we must be willing to pay that price, not least because of the kind of stories, such as that of Dahir in Somaliland, that we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Polak.

I read in the Wall Street Journal recently the story of a little child in neighbouring Somalia, one of the early victims of the current crisis: two month-old Muad Abdi who died after a night of diarrhoea and vomiting in a sprawling camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu. The newspaper reported his mother saying,

“‘His eyes turned up, and I felt he was no longer with me’”.


The report continued,

“His older brother was fighting an infection in a crowded hospital, his defences weakened by the kind of severe malnutrition”


that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, described.

“His 1-year-old sister, Habiba, slumped limply on her mother’s hip.”


His mother said that,

“Until three months ago … the $1 to $2 a day her husband earned from occasional construction work bought two meals of rice and beans for the family of six. Now that money is barely enough for one daily meal of rice”.


The situation had been exacerbated because of the crisis in Ukraine.

We owe it to families such as this to do more than we have done, and I know it is the united view of your Lordships’ House that we must do that. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated.

Motion agreed.

Ukraine

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord for his kind words. On the issue of Ukraine, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, summed it up very well. We stand united with Ukraine; it is right that Ukraine leads the efforts in terms of any discussions, including those on peace. We, as an ally, partner and constructive friend, stand strong in our support on humanitarian issues, on the economy and on the military. We stand with Ukraine in every sense. I wish to record the broad range of support across your Lordships’ House —indeed, across both Houses—in support of this central and key objective.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, when later today the Minister has talks with Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, will he talk to him about the use of starvation as a weapon of war, which is a war crime? Will he refer specifically to the burning of Ukrainian wheat fields over the past few days, as well as the blockading of the export of grain to countries in the third world, but specifically into famine-ridden countries that are already facing drought, locusts and the rest, in the Horn of Africa and east Africa?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I shall actually be seeing Karim Khan tomorrow, I think—by the time I get there it will be quite late. On the specific points, I have a bilateral whereby I shall be engaging with him on the very points that the noble Lord raises about the increasing level and spectrum of crimes that are taking place in Ukraine against the people of Ukraine, including conflict-related sexual violence. We will be documenting it—that is why the UK has led the way in ensuring that Ukraine’s own prosecutor, who visited the UK, is equipped not just with money and the technical support she needs but with the expertise, including that of Sir Howard Morrison, that is helping her directly in ensuring that those crimes can be documented so that we see successful prosecutions.

Nigeria

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about the broader issues of population growth. I referred to resources because it is often the issues that occur over land that cause further disputes, and those who are seeking to divide—particularly extremist groups—then use that very basis to cause further communal violence against different groups and, indeed, to take up arms and commit acts of extremism against vulnerable communities.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in this week of the International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Article 18, which the Minister himself has done so much to facilitate and entrench—and we are all grateful to him for that—will he reflect on the remarks of the Bishop of Ondo, who saw 40 of his own parishioners in his diocese murdered in their church only last month, and also on the continued abduction of Leah Sharibu, a teenager who was abducted, raped, impregnated and told that she must forcibly be made to convert to a different religion? Surely, this is a time to uphold freedom of religion or belief, Article 18, which insists on the right to believe, not to believe or to change your belief.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. That is why the United Kingdom Government are hosting the conference across the road. We are seeing not just government but, importantly, faith leaders and, most importantly, civil society leaders and survivors who have now become powerful advocates against religious persecution at the forefront of the discourse. Equally, we condemn the atrocities that have taken place repeatedly in Nigeria, including the recent attacks on the church, which caused further fatalities, and the shocking abduction and ongoing captivity of Leah Sharibu. I hope that there will be a focus on Nigeria when we host the PSVI conference on conflict-related sexual violence later this year. I look forward to working with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in this regard.

Tigray

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend will be aware, CRSV remains a key priority for the UK Government. The Foreign Secretary has made sexual violence in conflict one of her top priorities. In northern Ethiopia, the UK has provided £4 million of support to survivors of sexual violence. My noble friend is correct that we have deployed experts; we are working with UNICEF and the UNHCR to ensure that full support can be provided to survivors. I will be pleased to provide a briefing to my noble friend on the detail of our support and the focus we hope to bring at the PSVI conference in November.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the noble Lord had a chance to look at the link I sent him over the weekend to a French documentary, the first in 18 months to be undertaken by international, independent journalists who had access to Tigray, entitled “Tigray, the Land of Hunger”? It develops the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler; it is about the deliberate starvation of the people of Tigray, which is a war crime. Does the noble Lord agree that, with 6 million people under siege and starving to death—a situation that will be only worsened by the blockades in Ukraine—and Tigray being without electricity, internet, banking services and medical supplies, the situation is dire? When will the FCDO’s JACS report—the joint analysis of conflict and stability—in Ethiopia be completed? Are we preserving the evidence, so that those responsible for atrocity crimes will be brought to justice? Does he agree that there can be no peace without justice?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord’s final point. We are ensuring through the deployment of experts and in working with key international partners that we do exactly as he suggests and protect the evidence so that we can bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice. As the situation has been enhanced by our ability to provide humanitarian support, the report is being updated. We were just talking about home working; I regret to say that it is perhaps also not part and parcel of the job of a Foreign Minister. This weekend I spent most of my time in Birmingham, so I have not had time to read the report for the OSCE plenary, but I will look at the link that the noble Lord has sent me.

Ukraine and Neighbouring Countries: ODA

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

That is an extremely important point. Our priority at this moment is to do what we can to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself against Russia’s illegal aggression and to help those people who have been immediately caught up in the crisis—refugees but also others. We know that there will be an enormous rebuilding requirement across the board, and the UK is at the heart of the discussions as to what that process will look like, who will fund it and what the UK’s role will be.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will take the noble Lord back to the question asked by his noble friend Lord Bellingham and his helpful reply about the problems of getting grain out of Ukraine to countries that are at risk. Will he confirm the figures given by the UN that in east Africa and the Horn of Africa some 16 million people are already at risk of food insecurity and facing famine, and that by September the number could rise to 20 million? Can he confirm that in Odessa alone there are 45 million tonnes of grain and that the Kremlin continues to pump out a narrative blaming Ukraine and the West for this food now not reaching desperately needy people, and that some of those countries are being enlisted by Putin in his war because they are faced with the moral dilemma of being able to feed their people and siding with the Kremlin? It is hugely important that we contest that narrative and I hope the noble Lord will take the opportunity to do so.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a key point and although I cannot guarantee that the figures he cited are correct—I will have to put that on the record after this discussion to be sure that I get it right—I believe those are the figures I was presented with this morning. I think what he said is correct in terms of numbers, but he is certainly correct about the narrative. Russia is the only cause of the food security crisis that has resulted from this conflict. There is no other possible answer. The Russians have targeted food reserves—including yesterday when a very large grain store was destroyed, we believe deliberately —as part of an effort to throw the world, particularly its poorest countries, into turmoil. This is a very clear strategy on the part of President Putin and the noble Lord is absolutely right to call him out on it, as do the UK Government.

Ukraine: Defence Relationships

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, opened our debate today with a thoughtful and well-judged speech, and the whole House is grateful to him for initiating this debate.

Vasily Grossman once wrote:

“Every epoch has its own capital city, a city that embodies its will and soul. For several months of the Second World War that city was Stalingrad”.


In Britain, of course, it was the heavily blitzed city of Coventry. In the history of Putin’s war, that city will surely be Mariupol, and what savage irony that the descendants of the horrific brutality of Stalingrad have become its perpetrators and responsible for atrocities and war crimes. The barbaric onslaught of Mariupol led to besieged Ukrainian soldiers and civilians enduring weeks in the cellars and catacombs of the Azovstal steel plant. Putin has thought nothing about the criminality of unleashing wave after wave of death, destruction and damage including attacks on 400 hospitals and medical centres, killing civilians in railway stations and children in schools, mining fields and slaughtering animals.

Since 2014, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, reminded us, even before the depredations of Mariupol, Bucha and the rest, some 14,000 Ukrainians had already been killed, with the illegal occupation of Crimea and Donbas merely a curtain raiser. Since February, the Kremlin’s rhetoric has morphed from the pretext of protecting Russian speakers to portraying their special operation as existential, with Ukraine’s enemies hell-bent on its very destruction.

Reports of Russian fatalities vary but, whatever their number, military and political leaders must surely be recalling that wives and mothers, especially the mothers of conscripted boys who were lied to and told their sons would not be sent to the front, turned public opinion against Russian wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan. They may well do the same again. Russian people and culture have so much that we can admire, but Putin is not part of that. In July 2021, in a 5,000-word essay entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” he set out his ambitions. Mercifully shorter than the 153,000 words in Mein Kampf, in which Hitler outlined his pernicious anti-Semitic Aryan ideology, Putin positions himself with the imperial princes and tsars and whips up paranoia around anti-Russian conspiracies and foreign plots, rebutting the legitimacy of Ukraine’s borders and sovereign status.

However, Putin’s attempts—and his decision to abandon for now his failed attempts—to capture the entirety of Ukraine have led to a concentrated, deadly, bloody offensive in Donbas. The capture of Sievierodonetsk would enable domination of the supply lines. Although this hardly smacks of victory, nor does it suggest defeat—diminished and humbled, yes, but it would be absurd to underestimate Russia’s ability to dig in for a protracted conflict or to learn from its failures.

We should also be realistic about fatigue and sustained sacrifice. Despite the many pledges made to the courageous President Zelensky, some of the promised armaments have not reached Ukraine. Nor should we assume that self-interest will not get the better of domestic politics in those western countries facing rampant inflation and skyrocketing energy prices, so our commitment in the United Kingdom must be enduring and sustained.

I have some questions for the Minister. Over the past decade, €1 trillion was transferred to Russia in return for fossil fuels, but Ukraine has the second largest gas reserves in Europe and gas storage space equivalent to 27% of the European Union’s gas storage capacity. What is being done to access that and, ultimately, about the replacement of dependency with sustainability?

Returning to an issue raised by the noble Lords, Lord Liddle, Lord Cormack and Lord Foulkes, I ask: what are we going to do about the grain inside Ukraine at present? In his reply to me today, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, said that there were 25 million tonnes of grain. How are we going to get them out? Will we help with the integration of the Ukrainian railway system to enable exports? What are we doing to open the Black Sea ports to ships from neutral countries, many of which face starvation thanks to Putin’s new Holodomor, using starvation as a weapon of war?

I return to accountability and justice. On 19 May, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for prosecution of war crimes, aggression, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It called for a special international tribunal to punish those responsible for atrocities, including indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, forced deportations, use of banned ammunition, attacks against civilians fleeing via pre-arranged humanitarian corridors, executions and sexual violence, all of which amount to violations of international humanitarian law. Are we working with the European Union to prosecute those responsible and, if so, how? Are we systematically asking every refugee who arrives here for eyewitness accounts and statements that can be used in prosecutions? Are we preserving evidence?

On security, important speeches were made by the noble Lord, Lord West—I agreed with it entirely—and my noble friend Lord Dannatt. Will Sweden and Finland be fully integrated into NATO and when? Is Germany meeting its welcome promise to pay its fair share for our common defence? With the horrendous consumption of weapons and munitions, are we ensuring their replacement to safeguard our own defence and security?

Exactly 40 years ago, I listened to Ronald Reagan here in the Royal Gallery. He, Margaret Thatcher and NATO understood that in every generation like-minded nations must be ready to make extraordinary sacrifices to defeat those who threaten them. The heroism which we have seen in Ukraine has given us a clear view of the barbarians once more at our gate. Putin’s war gives sharper definition to the threat posed to our way of life by a growing number of authoritarians, their regimes and ideologies—a threat that must once again be defeated.

Nigeria: Killing of Church Worshippers

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

As the noble Lord knows, I will not be able to give him numbers on future spending, but a process is happening in line with the vision set in the IDS, which we discussed earlier today. It is for our country offices and regional experts to tell us what they are looking for, what they need and what the priorities are. The FCDO will then respond to that. It is not clear exactly how much money will be going to different areas, but, as he knows, Nigeria is one of the largest recipients of UK aid and has been for a long time. We provided over £100 million in bilateral aid to Nigeria last year. We provided nearly £210 million in 2020-21 and supported a very wide range of issues. I spent a considerable amount of time only two days ago in Stockholm discussing with my counterpart from Nigeria how we can do more to support the ambition Nigeria has to tackle what it regards to be the root cause of some of the conflict, which is a battle over resources, shortage of resources and very serious environmental degradation, which can mean only more human misery to come.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, notwithstanding the Minister’s comment about the shortage of resources, with which I agree, a lack of resources does not walk into people’s homes and behead them. It does not abduct young women such as Leah Sharibu, rape them and impregnate them. It did not walk into a church and kill over 50 people yesterday. Ideology, impunity and insecurity are words that stand together in Nigeria. For far too long there has been indifference to the widespread killings of minorities, especially in the north of the country but now in the south as well. In 2020, the all-party group on freedom of religion or belief produced a report which asked the question: is this an unfolding genocide? The Africa Minister at the time dismissed it and said that this was a wrong appreciation of what was under way. Will the Minister at least undertake to go back and read that report to look at some of the issues around ideology, Boko Haram, ISIS West Africa Province and a multitude of other organisations coming out of the Sahel?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I am certainly not going to disagree with the noble Lord. These organisations are a cancer in the region and are born of an utterly perverse ideology. We are doing everything we can, along with allies, to encourage religious leaders to speak out. In fact, religious leaders from different faiths have spoken out in strong terms as a consequence of the barbarity that we are talking about today—including, for example, the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs under the leadership of the President-General the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, who condemned in very strong language Sunday’s violence. That is true of religious leaders of many faiths in Nigeria. So I very strongly agree with the comments of the noble Lord. I know that the APPG sent a delegation very recently —I forget which month—to Nigeria, and the feedback that has been provided to the FCDO has been invaluable.

I cannot answer the question on genocide, partly because it is not UK Government policy to unilaterally determine whether genocide has occurred, in line with the Genocide Convention. There is no question in my mind or any of my colleagues’ minds about the extent of the barbarity that took place on Sunday, or indeed that has taken place on many occasions in that country, often as a consequence of the toxic cancer that the noble Lord described in his question.