European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

I will draw my remarks to a close. Of course, not all public opinion agrees with this, but I have a sense that public opinion has been broadly supportive of child refugees and of our humanitarian obligations as a country. If the argument is put to the British public, they tend to respond positively. I am not arguing about immigration as a whole but about child refugees.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, just before the noble Lord concludes his very persuasive remarks, can he put into context for the House the numbers of unaccompanied children we are talking about? In the context of World Refugee Day last year, with 70.8 million displaced people or refugees in the world and a further 37,000 becoming displaced every day, the modesty of what was incorporated by your Lordships’ House and put into law should speak for itself. Will the noble Lord remind the House of the small numbers of the most vulnerable people of all that the amendment deals with?

[Lord Dubs]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am not sure that I have every figure at my fingertips, but let me do my best. Section 67 of the 2016 Act covered children being able to come to Britain without having family here. The Government capped the total at 480. I understand that we are quite well short of that, even today. The Government said the number of 480 was limited by the ability of local authorities to find foster families. That is not the case with children joining their relatives here, where clearly local authorities do not have to find foster places. I think, to date, several hundred children—the Minister may correct the figure—have come under the family reunion provisions in the Dublin treaty. We might be talking about 800. Without having the exact figures, we are probably talking about 1,000 or 1,000-plus in the Greek islands and in northern France. In the context of the international situation, that is very few.

The Minister said that we have taken a certain percentage of the EU total. Yes, we have, but probably only in relation to the size of our country. I do not dispute the figure from the Minister. However, refugees in a wider sense are going to be the most challenging issue to the whole world, and certainly to Europe and ourselves, over many years. But what we are talking about here is a very small number of children, who will be positively affected by this measure. That is why I am pretty keen on it. We had a small demo in Parliament Square yesterday, with a lot of people supporting it. We have had more than 200,000 signatures on a petition supporting the provision. I believe that we are essentially on the side of public opinion. I believe that we are essentially on the side of humanity. I beg to move.

Syria

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Bringing forward this Statement was the first opportunity through which to update Parliament. I am very pleased to say that this Thursday we have brought forward a debate within this House to take note of the national security situation. The list is open, so I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ contributions to that later on this week.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in the snake pit of competing interests and proxy wars in Syria, it will have been of little comfort, as the noble Lord said a few moments ago, to hear the words “Mission accomplished”, certainly for the relatives of some 400,000 people who have died and the 12 million displaced in Syria. I too would welcome more from the noble Baroness about what diplomatic action we are going to take to try to bring a conclusion to this terrible conflict.

I would also like to return to what she said about the veto that has been used in the Security Council and the accountability to which people will be held, whether they are responsible for genocidal crimes against humanity, in the case of Daesh, or for chemical weapons being used, in the case of the Syrian regime. What are we doing to create new mechanisms, such as a regional court that does not need a decision taken by the Security Council, which could be established by the United States, France, the UK and our allies so that those who have been responsible for these depredations will be brought to justice? Surely what marks us out from people like Assad or, for that matter, Daesh is our belief in the upholding of the rule of law.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s sentiment. Russia has used its veto six times on the topic of chemical weapons use in Syria since 2017, including, as I mentioned, the recent veto of the draft resolution which would have established an independent investigation. Of course, we have used other mechanisms. Through the EU, we have brought sanctions against those involved in the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and we will continue to try to work through international bodies to ensure that those who commit these heinous crimes are brought to justice.

Salisbury Incident

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can certainly assure the noble Lord that we adopt a rigorous approach to border security. Agencies work together at the border to manage a range of threats, including those posed by terrorism and serious and organised crime. The Border Force has a range of capabilities to detect, target and identify substances and materials that could cause harm. This includes Cyclamen, a joint Home Office and UK Border Force counterterrorism initiative to detect and intercept the illicit importation of radiological and nuclear material into the UK.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, does not the use of Novichok in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, which is reminiscent of the use of the VX nerve agent, used to assassinate Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur Airport, and the use of chemical weapons in the conflict in Syria, remind us that chemical and biological weapons are not a throwback to the Cold War? Should we not therefore be giving consideration now to the re-establishment of the Army’s disbanded chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to highlight the seriousness of the situation facing us. We obviously comply fully with all our obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and we will be working very closely with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to ensure that we try to prevent this happening again.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the first political meeting that I attended was as a teenager in 1968 to hear an erudite but rather dry speaker extol the virtues of the Common Market. His arguments, but even more so the wartime experiences of my father and grandfather, clinched my support for entering the Common Market. My father had seen action at Monte Cassino and in the north African desert, his brother was killed in the RAF, and their father had been in the Flanders trenches and later in Mesopotamia and the Holy Land. Siegfried Sassoon’s Great War poetry, read in Picardy last week under leaden skies, 100 years after 20,000 British and Empire soldiers lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, vividly recalls those catastrophic events. Sadly, another generation later, such powerful and shocking patriotic experiences seem to have lost much of their resonance.

My support for what became the European Community was also inspired by Europe’s founding fathers: Adenauer, Schuman, Monnet and de Gasperi, who were shaped by their own harrowing wartime experiences at the hands of Nazism and fascism. They were Christian humanists who believed in subsidiarity, solidarity, the promotion of the common good, social justice and reconciliation. It was for those reasons that in 1975, as a young local politician in Liverpool, I campaigned for Britain to stay in the Community, and 67% of the British people agreed.

In the intervening years, what went wrong and what has changed? By 2007, the Community had morphed into a Union and that year I spoke against the Lisbon treaty, because I do not believe in a centralised European superstate, replete with a common currency—so disastrous for countries such as Greece—a European army, or its other trappings. One size does not fit all and is contrary to subsidiarity.

Although I, along with my family, voted to remain in the European Union, it was clear to me that there would be a win for the leave campaign. This was confirmed when I chaired a public debate in Lancashire a week before the vote. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, reminded us about the problems of binary choices; I could not help thinking that if a third option had been available on the ballot paper I would have voted to remain and reform. Binary choices are by definition narrow, when most things in life are invariably more complicated and subtle. Similarly, in Scotland a third option of devo-max—rather than independence or status quo—would have united rather than divided. If we are to have more referenda we should think far more carefully about the questions we ask.

Just before the vote, someone close to me said she did not know anyone who was voting leave. That comment graphically illustrates how dangerously separated and divided our country has become—it is not only on the London Underground that we need to mind the gap. But the spectre of inequality referred to by the most reverend Primate reminds us that not just gaps but chasms are opening up in society. We need to understand that many people feel powerless, disaffected and angry. Many of them are from northern towns and live in poorer communities, dangerously disconnected from the political classes. It would be disingenuous beyond belief to caricature or dismiss all those who voted for Brexit as xenophobes or racists. I say that as someone whose mother was an immigrant whose first language was Irish, and who greatly prizes this nation’s diversity. But let me also be clear that the scapegoating and hate-mongering, and the deployment of poisonous xenophobic arguments not seen since the days of Peter Griffiths, will have long-term consequences for community cohesion. It is much easier to summon up the tempest than to quell it, and to call up the furies than dismiss them. In this respect I echo the remarks made throughout your Lordships’ House. The Government need to act immediately to make it clear that people settled here will not be weaponised in the coming negotiations. Failure to do so will further poison our world.

Many of the votes cast were angry votes. That anger, fuelled by a scepticism about Europe’s failure to deal with a mass migration of terrified people, was hardly assuaged by Jean-Claude Juncker’s arrogance in telling us just days before this tumultuous referendum that however we voted it would not make any difference. The Junckerism seems to be catching. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said unwisely last week that, “There has to be a way to resist public opinion”. It is bad enough that millions of our poorer citizens believe that the establishment has become impervious to their fate, but it would be unbelievably dangerous to tell 17.5 million people that they will be resisted and not listened to. The key to the future is surely to be found in Article 50, which specifically requires the European Union to listen to an exiting member and, in the words of the article, to take,

“account of the framework for its future relationship”.

This crisis must now be used to create a range of new relationships at every level, perhaps modelled for instance on the EU framework programmes such as Horizon 2020, which is so important to UK science. Switzerland, Israel and Norway are all part of Horizon 2020, but of course are not part of the European Union. It is imperative that political paralysis does not delay work in forging such relationships. These are urgent questions and the Government simply cannot go into hibernation. Skilful negotiators will need wise heads, steely nerves and steady hands to see whether within the framework of subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good we can create new opportunities to live together amicably. We owe it to those who bought our own and Europe’s freedoms with their blood and their lives. We also owe it to all those who now feel marginalised or fearful for their own futures.

Syria: UK Military Action

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the just war tradition insists that war must always be a last resort—a necessary evil in an imperfect world. Measured against the just war criteria, the Government’s case is undoubtedly strong but there are legitimate questions to ask. Let us take two of the criteria: a just cause and prospects of success. Is the cause just? Self-evidently, ISIS’s barbaric ideology is the antithesis of everything that a free society upholds and stands for. We will need a full-spectrum strategy to deal with it, and I welcome the references in the Commons Motion to non-military action.

How can we entrench in the popular imagination the justice of military action and the justice of the cause? For months in your Lordships’ House I have pressed the Government to formally declare the actions of ISIS in Syria as genocide. Our obligations are set out in the preamble to the sixth recital of the 1998 Rome statute of the International Criminal Court, which recalls that,

“it is the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes”,

while the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states that the obligation each state thus has to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide is not territorially limited by the convention.

I recently chaired a meeting in Parliament attended by Syrians and the Archbishop of Aleppo. We were told how, in a village outside Aleppo, ISIS cut the tops off the fingers of a 14 year-old boy because his Christian father refused to convert. They then crucified the boy and killed the father. At the weekend, a mass grave of Yazidis was uncovered near Sinjar. Months ago, a former Yazidi MP, speaking here, said that she could not understand why the West had not declared these events a genocide.

In the battle of ideas, the rule of law is the best antidote to ISIS. Capturing and holding those responsible for these atrocities—whether in Syria, Paris, Tunisia, the Sinai or elsewhere—would underline the justice of our actions, and the declaration of genocide should have preceded further military action. We should name this for what it is.

My other question concerns the probability of success. Drones and Tornados have never captured anyone. I regret the phrase in the Government Motion in the Commons ruling out the use of ground forces. Without a commitment to an international ground force, as in Kuwait or the Balkans, I remain unconvinced about the probability of success and disturbed that Parliament is being asked to believe a Panglossian figure of 70,000 so-called moderate fighters in Syria. This is no army: it represents a kaleidoscope of opinions, objectives and capability; they are split into a hundred factions and are geographically spread across Syria. Unlike the Peshmerga and SDF alliance, made up of Kurds, Arabs and Syriacs, which has taken 1,300 square kilometres from ISIS in northern Syria and which I have repeatedly pressed the Government to support—and do so again today—this dodgy figure of 70,000 will not provide a ground force capable of ensuring success. When the Minister comes to reply, I hope that he will tell us what additional support will be given to the SDF.

Western air strikes in Syria cannot succeed without ground forces. In a Question that I tabled yesterday, I asked the Minister to give us his assessment of the statement by General Sir Richard Shirreff that even a force of that size—of 70,000—would be incapable of liberating a city of 350,000 people such as Raqqa. On this question hangs the just war principle of “probability of success.” It also begs the post-Iraq question which hangs over the debate: what plan is in place for the aftermath once the bombing is over? What is the end game? I ask the Minister to address these specific questions.

To express doubt or scepticism is not to be confused with either appeasement or an unwillingness to fight.

Syria: Refugees

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister told us that there are 3.2 million refugees in the region. The generosity of countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey contrasts with the lack of generosity of many other countries. Although Her Majesty’s Government have been generous with humanitarian aid, the number of vulnerable refugees—90—that the Minister mentioned to the House today is in stark contrast to that figure of 3.2 million. Only yesterday in Geneva, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned, the UN specifically asked that 130,000 should be accepted by developed countries. Will the noble Lord tell us what we are going to do to try to reach that target? We are now in the depths of winter, and groups such as the Yazidis and the other minorities that we have all followed over these past months are in freezing conditions. What are we doing to ensure that they are given additional humanitarian relief?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord is right to highlight these issues. We take this very seriously and approach it in the way that we think is the best way of approaching it; that is, that humanitarian aid in the region is the best way of doing it. We accept that for very vulnerable people in special circumstances we can provide help in this country, but we think that providing £700 million to the region is the most effective way of providing our humanitarian aid, which will help people in that area. It provides basic things such as water and food, which can help the largest numbers of people, and it complements the UN’s programme because we take the people into this country that it suggests to us and we provide money in the area to deal with the people directly on the ground.

Iraq

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, since March 2011 more than 150,000 people have died in Syria, 6.2 million people have been displaced and there are currently more than 1 million children who are refugees. Thanks to the depredations of ISIL, added to that number are 1.8 million people who have been displaced in Iraq. That clearly cannot be left unchecked. However, it would be hard to imagine that a campaign of aerial bombardment alone would make that dire situation any better. That is why this House is right to caution that we must proceed with our eyes wide open and that we need a comprehensive strategy.

We must be particularly wary of the law of unintended consequences, especially by providing cover for the Assad regime to consolidate its position. Only yesterday it boasted that it had seized back a number of villages, while our eyes were on ISIL. There can be little doubt, as we attack ISIL command centres, that its insurgents will hide in civilian settings. Every time a cruise or Brimstone missile hits the wrong target and kills non-combatants, yet more fighters will be radicalised and recruited to its cause.

However brave and better armed the Kurdish Peshmerga and Free Syrian Army may be—we had better hope, this time, the arms we provide do not fall into the hands of ISIL—endless air strikes and drone warfare will not achieve our objectives. We must be wary of the danger of assuming that the old proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is true, especially in the case of countries such as Iran.

By definition, military action cannot kill ideas or beliefs. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury intimated in his remarks earlier, our central task must be to convince Muslim-majority societies that their own interests demand toleration of minorities and the equality and freedom of people of other faiths.

In the immediate situation in which we find ourselves, we should recall the successful initiative of Sir John Major in 1991 of creating a United Nations safe haven and no-fly zone, which safeguarded the Kurds. We again need to protect them, the Yazidis, Christians and other minorities who now, as refugees, face another enemy: the fast-approaching winter. As the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, said, we must urgently dry up the sources of ISIL revenue, which, from the sale of oil, antiquities and hostage ransoms, has acquired reserves of more than $1 billion—some of which, paradoxically, are derived from sources in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

We must deal more effectively with those insurgents entering the region, hundreds of whom are from the United Kingdom. In the debate we had in February I mentioned the story of a young man who studied mechanical engineering at the University of Liverpool, went out to fight alongside jihadists and was killed in action there. Sadly, there are hundreds more like him who have gone to Syria. In that same debate, I asked that those leading and fighting for ISIL, and others committing crimes against humanity in the region, be referred to the International Criminal Court or a specially established regional court to hold to account all those charged with what the Prime Minister described on Wednesday as crimes “literally medieval in character”. I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will address that point specifically in his reply.

Upholding the rule of law may not bring the dramatic results of aerial bombardment, but it is a surer way to demonstrate the nature of a civilised society. It was Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. In dealing with ISIL, we risk doing the same things all over again and getting the same chaotic results.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and Philippines

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, given what the Minister has said to the House about the response of both the public and the British Government to the people of the Philippines, does he not agree that, in the light of the long disputes that have taken place between China and the Philippines, this would be an admirable opportunity to draw China in to the relief operations? Does he further agree, given the response that was made to China at the time of the Szechuan earthquake, that these catastrophes can be times, to use a phrase used elsewhere in the Statement, for healing and reconciliation?

When discussions took place about the reference to the Human Rights Council of the atrocities that occurred in Sri Lanka, did any discussion take place of the model used in South Africa of a justice and truth commission to examine what took place as an opportunity for both sides to come to terms with the depredations that have occurred there?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

On the first point, I agree with the noble Lord that these awful events could provide an opportunity for a little bit of healing. I hope that other nations will take part in providing help to the Philippines. As far as the detail of the conversations is concerned, I am not sure which parallels or analogies were raised. I am sure that it was the case, however, that some of our experience in Northern Ireland—the difficult times that we went through and the lessons that we learnt in trying to make progress there—were raised and would have been apposite. If there is anything further that I can find out for the noble Lord, I will certainly let him know.

Algeria

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with both the noble Lord’s points—on the importance of working with Algeria, and having African solutions to problems in Africa.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that two of the fatalities were men from Liverpool? Paul Morgan, the head of security, originated from Aigburth, and was killed while trying to repel the attackers. Garry Barlow, from Allerton, reportedly had Semtex strapped to his chest. Their deaths left their loved ones and the local community utterly devastated. Will the Minister ensure that every practical help is given to these and the other grieving families as they try to come to terms with their loss? As this jihadist contagion threatens other countries, especially Nigeria, will he look again at the proscribing of Boko Haram, which has been responsible for hundreds of deaths, and the need to find political and economic solutions to deter the easy recruitment of the disaffected, as well as the wisdom of supporting militias in places such as Syria, which have links with al-Qaeda, or share jihadist indifference to the slaughter of innocent people?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

First, I agree very much with the noble Lord how important it is that these poor families have every support that we can give them. I know that through the police and in other ways through our embassy we have been providing as much of that support as we possibly can.

On his broader point about Nigeria, we strongly condemn the violence that there has been in northern Nigeria. We are working with the Nigerian authorities to try to find lasting solutions to that conflict and, through our High Commission in Abuja, we are supporting counterterrorism work and interfaith projects. In November, the terrorist organisation, Ansaru, was proscribed by Her Majesty’s Government, which I hope sent a clear message that we condemn its terrorist activities.

Housing

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, we have not heard from the Cross Benches during this Question.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I am grateful. Will the Minister share with the House the number of people who are currently on housing waiting lists in the United Kingdom? Can she also share with us the number of underoccupied properties and the number of empty properties in the UK?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I do not have the figures with me, although I appreciate that they are available. Perhaps I may write to the noble Lord and give them to him.