Iraq: Nimrud

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we regret that event, which was part of a long dialogue between advanced countries and the Middle East. Saudi Arabia was deeply unhappy with it. As part of my preparation for this programme, I have just read a very interesting and depressing article on the links between authoritarian government in the Middle East and authoritarian behaviour in families across the Middle East. We are all beginning more and more to understand that raising the status of women is essential to moving towards more enlightened government and better social and economic development.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that because of the Wahhabi doctrine, which the Saudi Arabians promote, they believe in the destruction of historic monuments, even those associated with the life of the Prophet? Will the Government remonstrate with the Saudi Arabians about the practice of destroying sites associated with the Prophet?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am well aware that the strictest form of Salafism believes in the destruction of idols. There is a certain amount in the Old Testament about the destruction of idols, for those of us who remember those particular chapters. Unfortunately, these are part of the most ancient and crabbed versions of different religions. We argue with the Saudis about producing a much more enlightened version of Islam and encouraging that within their own country.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I will do so unless anyone wishes to speak.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, I hope that we are not going to have another speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, on Amendment 48 when she has already spoken to it.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

No, I have not spoken to Amendment 48.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the Government’s aim is to promote and support the regeneration of brownfield land and the creation of new, locally led garden cities. This is not news, nor is the fact that Urban Development Corporations can play a key role in driving forward the delivery of large-scale development. This is especially true in areas where previous ambitions have failed to progress.

Urban Development Corporations—UDCs—are statutory bodies which are established under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, whose objective is to regenerate designated urban development areas. Urban development areas and corporations are established by affirmative orders, which, if held to affect private interests, can be declared to be hybrid by the House and therefore become subject to the hybrid instruments procedure. Once declared hybrid, the order is open to allow private interests to petition. This has happened in respect of all previous urban development areas and Urban Development Corporations.

A hybrid procedure is time-consuming and can be costly for all parties, involving processes of representations and hearings over what can be a substantial time. The formation of an urban development area or an Urban Development Corporation does not, in the Government’s opinion, impact on the private rights of individuals and businesses in the area. The powers available to Urban Development Corporations are already available to local authorities, notably in development management planning powers and, where necessary, compulsory purchase. We therefore do not consider that the creation of an urban development area or corporation gives rise to a loss of rights. It is the Government’s view that the hybrid procedure is not necessary in the case of statutory instruments establishing urban development areas and corporations, provided that there is proper consultation with individuals, businesses and local authorities in the area concerned before the statutory instrument is presented to Parliament.

The Government propose to create a statutory duty to consult. It would require the Secretary of State to consult,

“persons who appear to … represent”,

residents and businesses, local authorities and anyone else who the Secretary of State considers appropriate. The proposed duty to consult would increase the level of public scrutiny that proposals of this nature must undergo. It would ensure that anyone who wishes to can respond to a consultation and express their views and concerns.

Under the current legislation, there is no statutory duty to consult on the creation of an Urban Development Corporation. When the 1980 Act was passed, the affirmative and hybrid procedure was the only express means for local residents to influence government policy. Establishing a statutory duty to consult provides people with an opportunity to participate early in the policy-making process and voice concerns at the point at which they arise, rather than waiting for a chance to petition once a statutory instrument is laid before Parliament.

The way in which people engage with government has improved and changed greatly in recent years. The advent of new technology means that it is now quicker, easier and cheaper for members of the public to raise their concerns through consultation—more so than by bringing a petition in front of your Lordships’ House. Replacing the hybrid procedure with a statutory consultation duty would reflect this change in the way people now interact with government and the policy process. The Government therefore remain of the view that the negative procedure, subject to a statutory duty to consult, is the appropriate procedure for establishing UDCs.

I should like to place on record my particular thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for his participation in discussions on how to proceed on this matter. I know he shares my view that we want to see progress in taking this proposal forward. The inclusion of a 12-month sunset provision, with an expiry date of 31 March 2016, demonstrates our commitment to the regeneration of areas where development is waiting to happen. Any statutory instruments establishing an urban development area or Urban Development Corporation, if laid after 31 March 2016, would revert to the current, affirmative, procedure. It would be for a future Government to propose longer-lasting changes beyond the sunset date, and for the Parliament of the day to debate and decide on such changes. The Government have previously argued that such a change would be appropriate for all the reasons I have described, but we recognise that this issue will not be resolved in the current Parliament.

If the changes we are proposing to the Bill are approved, then, following Royal Assent, the Government will lay a statutory instrument establishing an urban development area and corporation for Ebbsfleet. The Government have already consulted on this proposal, and have published a report demonstrating the support expressed for our proposals in the consultation responses. Given the progress that has been made in recent weeks and months, and the strong case for an Urban Development Corporation at Ebbsfleet, it is perfectly reasonable that we should now move forward with establishing the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation as soon as possible. I therefore hope that this amendment carries your Lordships’ support, and I beg to move.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, if the provisions regarding short-term lettings were unsatisfactory, these provisions coming before your Lordships at this stage of the Bill are unsatisfactory in spades. The amendments that we are now looking at are in substitution of the new clauses reducing the power of Parliament over the order-making power to designate land as urban development areas and to establish Urban Development Corporations. The Delegated Powers Committee received those amendments originally on 25 October, and a memorandum explaining the nature and purpose of the proposals on 26 October, giving it time to report at lightning speed on 29 October. The report severely criticised the original proposals as a breach of the undertaking in the consultation document to obtain express parliamentary approval for these proposals, and called on the Government to withdraw them before the next stage in Committee.

The amendments were accordingly withdrawn but, unfortunately, as the Delegated Powers Committee pointed out in its further report published yesterday, the two new clauses that we are now considering still provide for parliamentary approval to be via negative, rather than affirmative, resolution until 31 March 2016. This means that until that date, interested parties would not have the right to petition against orders designating UDAs and establishing UDCs, as has always been the case in the past, leading to the hearing of evidence in a committee on the matters raised in the petition. The Government recognise that your Lordships would need time to consider and debate such a major reduction of our powers of scrutiny, but are insisting that in the case of Ebbsfleet—the only proposal likely to be affected by these amendments—they must pre-empt a more general debate.

I understand that in the consultation, some three-quarters of the respondents were in favour of this new town and one-quarter of them were against. That does not tell us whether any of the antis would have gone to the length of petitioning, but any who were minded to do so have been deprived of their rights although, as the Delegated Powers Committee points out, the Government gave no indication of this in the consultation. I am keen that Ebbsfleet should go ahead rapidly, but I regret the Government’s assumption that they could trample on the rights of scrutiny and the rights of private interests to be heard. They should have started the Deregulation Bill earlier in the Session or, at the very least, they should have found time for a debate on the proposal in the Minister’s letter that the negative procedure is appropriate for all UDC proposals, subject to a statutory right to consultation. I make no comment on the Government’s argument in the memorandum they submitted to the Delegated Powers Committee that the affirmative procedure leads to uncertainty, delay and a loss of business confidence which acts as an impediment to the process of regeneration that the UDCs are expected to deliver.

We are talking here about taxpayers’ expenditure of £1 billion on the infrastructure of these new towns, the first at Ebbsfleet in Kent, followed by others at Bicester, Ashford, Oxford and Northstowe in south Cambridgeshire. If the advice of David Rudlin, the winner of the Wolfson Economics Prize is being followed, they are the precursors to a further 35 similar new towns, giving a total of some 600,000 new dwellings, that will,

“take a confident bite out of the green belt”.

Ebbsfleet is entirely brownfield, as we have discussed, but that cannot be true of all 40 new towns that are planned. How do the Government intend to amend the National Planning Policy Framework to avoid inconsistency between the NPPF’s severe restrictions on development in the green belt and the new towns policy of taking a confident bite out of it? Or do they intend to make ad hoc decisions in each case as it arises?

Will the Minister say how the new towns will make a proportionate contribution towards meeting the dire national shortage of affordable homes? In the case of Ebbsfleet, Land Securities says that it has plans to develop up to 10,000 homes, but is there not a Section 106 agreement for the company to make a contribution towards infrastructure costs in lieu of any obligation to ensure that a given proportion of the homes are affordable? In his helpful letter of 9 February, my noble friend said that the UDC will not have plan-making powers but will have to determine applications within the context of the affordable housing policies set out in the Dartford and Gravesham local plan core strategies, both of which require private housing developers to deliver 30% of the units as affordable housing.

Land Securities is not building any houses itself, but will reach deals with housebuilders on parcels within the site. The Section 106 agreement that the company reached with Dartford Borough Council does not require any affordable homes, the money being allocated to schools. The local MP, Gareth Johnson, says it would be wrong to suggest that there will not be any affordable homes and that it would be a matter for the local development corporation, but surely that is not the way it works. Since all the land is owned by a single company and its objective will be to maximize returns for its shareholders, the LDC will have no say in the matter, unless it uses its compulsory purchase powers. Will there be anything in the rules of the LDC that will encourage it to use those powers to achieve a proportionate mix of affordable housing? How else does the Government think that Ebbsfleet and the other new towns will make any provision for people who cannot afford to buy?

I also asked my noble friend last week how the Government would ensure that LDCs would provide appropriate accommodation for caravan-dwelling Travellers, whose needs are even less likely to be a priority for developers. My noble friend said that they would be required to plan for the needs of Travellers in the same way as local authorities. Does that mean that they have to start from scratch with a needs assessment? Would it not be simpler for them to reach agreements with the local authorities contributing to their area to assume responsibility for a proportion of the needs that have already been identified and assessed by those councils?

Sri Lanka: Presidential Elections

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot say that, but I certainly hope so.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned that President Sirisena has undertaken to conduct a domestic inquiry into the allegations of war crimes that were committed in the final stages of the conflict in 2009. Has anybody suggested to him that he should facilitate the inquiry which was launched by the United Nations Human Rights Council at a meeting last March? Will our Government encourage him to invite it to Sri Lanka and facilitate its work there?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that has been the position of our Government for the past year. Of course, there are some sensitive issues of national sovereignty. The noble Lord may be aware that there are even some people in the United Kingdom who take objection to international organisations looking at human rights issues within this country.

CIA: Torture

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I take the noble Lord’s point and I encourage him to read the short 500-page executive summary of the US Senate committee’s report which has, from the summary of the summary that I have read, some rather shocking things in it. We very much hope that British officials were in no way associated with some of those actions.

[Lord Avebury]

How can my noble friend promise to address the claims of British complicity in acts of torture when those allegations have been redacted from the report, presumably at the request of the British Government themselves?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are clear that the question of the presence or participation of British officials in some of the acts that are alleged is one of the things that must be investigated.

Sri Lanka

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Lord is aware, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has just reported that he is not receiving the co-operation which he needs from the Sri Lankan Government.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, will the Government condemn the refusal of the Sri Lankan authorities to grant visas to the OHCHR team which was to investigate the atrocities committed in the final stages of the civil war by both the Government and the LTTE? Will the comprehensive report of that team, headed by Martti Ahtisaari, nevertheless be published in accordance with the mandate of the team at the 28th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2015?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the UK was a sponsor of the resolution of the UN Human Rights Council. We are actively concerned in this issue. We are not at all happy about the refusal of the Sri Lankan authorities to co-operate with the attempts to have an external inquiry, because of our concerns that the internal inquiry’s recommendations have not yet been implemented.

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the inquiry has cost £9 million so far. We estimate that by the time it is completed it will have cost £10 million. By comparison, the Savile inquiry cost £100 million.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, how far will the extra £1 million take us? Can my noble friend give an assurance that it will not be within the pre-election period before the next general election when silence is observed?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is the assurance that the Minister for Civil Society gave last week. We are all anxious that if it is not published by the end of February it would be inappropriate to publish it during the campaign period.

Afghanistan

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I cannot entirely give that assurance. Afghanistan is not the only country in which the voices of women are not easy to get through, particularly when Governments are involved. I can think of a number of other Middle Eastern countries. I would simply remark that, at President Ghani’s inauguration, as noble Lords might know, his wife appeared for the first time as part of the inauguration. These are small but useful steps forward.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, what action will my noble friend and the Government take to encourage joint action by the Governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan against the terrorists, who are a threat to both their countries?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are in regular and constant touch with the Pakistani Government precisely to encourage a constructive relationship with developments in Afghanistan. I am sure that my noble friend, like me, will be well aware of the very complicated relationships between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is part of the problem that we face.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, the emphasis in the debate so far has been very much on the interests of the employer and business in seeking to remove as much red tape and as many burdens as possible—and that is understandable. Clause 2 and what it means may be small beer for the employer and a company, because there are now so few discrimination cases in which individuals can clear all the hurdles, but it is not small beer for those individuals. Many employees feel that discrimination in the workplace is something that they cannot do very much about. The hurdles which have been placed in front of them are such that few now get to the employment tribunal; they are not even able to afford to lodge their cases. If you are a cook or a cleaner, you are generally a low paid and vulnerable employee. Employers feel sufficiently empowered as to exploit that situation. We should recognise that this may be something that it would be good for employers not to have as a burden but we should also recognise that it is not a great burden when you consider the volume of cases that get to that point. We are talking about employers who have been found guilty of discrimination.

If someone has gone to the trouble of challenging unfair treatment in the workplace, gone through some form of internal process perhaps, paid their money and gone through conciliation, cleared all the other hurdles to get to the tribunal and won their case, we should be concerned that the tribunal might not be able to make recommendations to help the employer who is guilty of discrimination to put things right in a way that would make a difference to how employees are treated. It is about sending out those messages. While the Government have been keen to remove burdens from employers, they should certainly not advocate that employers go on being unfair to their employees. It is therefore important that Clause 2 should not stay in the Bill. That would enable us to give confidence to employees that, although there are all those hurdles, those who succeed in getting to the tribunal and win a case will be dealt with in a way that enables them to be treated fairly as employees.

I want to give an example of what I am getting at by citing the recent case which Police Constable Carol Howard brought against the Metropolitan Police. That case illustrates the folly of allowing Clause 2 to remain in the Bill. The tribunal found that the respondent, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, directly discriminated against PC Howard because she is a black woman. It also held that the respondent victimised her because of her complaints of discrimination. She had had the temerity to lodge a complaint, have an internal process and then go beyond that to the employment tribunal—how dare she? She was harassed and victimised; she was even arrested and put on bail for more than a year during the process of the case and subsequent to the finding of discrimination.

What was worse, the tribunal found that the respondent had a policy of deleting findings of discrimination in its own internal grievance procedures, known as the “fairness at work” process. That is some fairness at work. You have an internal investigation. If any aspect of discrimination is found, the investigating fairness-at-work officers are told, “You have to remove that, delete it”. What sort of fairness at work process seeks to hide the truth of discriminatory activity and to mislead the tribunal about its own internal findings? Those distorted and doctored internal findings from a flawed process would never have come to light had not Carol Howard tenaciously, while being victimised and harassed, fought to get the disclosure of those internal reports, which the Metropolitan Police resisted strenuously but finally had to do. Had she not done so, the Met and its expensive lawyers would have got away with covering up extensive discrimination. Is that justice? Is that fair? Is that what we want?

As I said, it is understandable that we seek to unburden employers and companies of regulation that seems unnecessary—this may seem unnecessary because few people are making it to the end of the process—but the context I have just described shows that we have reached the point of serious imbalance in the process of seeking remedies through employment tribunal and discrimination cases, which enables employers, should they choose to do so, to ride roughshod over their employees’ rights when it comes to unfair and unlawful discrimination. Clause 2 adds insult to injury. The only employers who would want it are those who have something to hide or those who want to continue unlawfully and unfairly to discriminate against their employees.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, I imagine that in the case of the police officer who successfully made a claim against the Metropolitan Police there was no recommendation by the tribunal. It might have been thought to be unnecessary in such a case because it received such widespread publicity that there would be pressure on the Metropolitan Police to declare what changes it had made in its policy so that similar cases of discrimination did not happen in future. However, we do not know what was the case in the 28 other recommendations, where the media may have been less inclined to look into the circumstances and focus attention on what sort of reforms were needed to the procedures that were the subject of the complaint against the violators of the Equality Act.

Have the Government looked at the cases where the 27 recommendations were made? With those accepted by the employers, which cost them a mere £2,000 on average, the procedure was obviously helpful to the employer. We are talking not about an additional burden but something that assisted the employer to avoid similar tribunal cases in future. If the argument behind the whole of the Bill is about the burden on employers, we are talking about the wrong subject here, because we are removing a burden by allowing the recommendations to be made, particularly when employers implement them. I would like my noble friend to say what happened in the other 19 cases where there was no response to inquiries by the EHRC. Would it not be helpful if your Lordships could know whether those employers also found the recommendations helpful? If so, and 100% of the 28 recommendations were accepted by employers and implemented at fairly trivial cost, surely that is a very strong argument for retaining the powers. Even if observations substitute for recommendations, they do not have quite the same moral force. If my noble friend can enlighten me on the other 27 cases, that would be very helpful to your Lordships in reaching a decision.

South Sudan

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 28th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a problem not only for this conflict but for the Syrian conflict and the neighbours of Syria as well. The United Kingdom is the second-largest donor to South Sudan and those donations include assistance to refugees in surrounding countries. IGAD, the international action group, operates as a means through which all the neighbouring countries get together. I emphasise how serious the conflict is. It is estimated that perhaps 7 million out of the 10 million people in South Sudan may be short of food or under famine conditions by this time next year.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the agreement between the parties that representatives of the people displaced by the conflict will take part in the peace talks. Will the representatives be selected by IGAD or by some other means, and if so, what will be the process? Will the talks to be started on Wednesday cover the details of how the transitional Government of national unity is to be established?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

IGAD is currently consulting outside the country with potential civil society representatives who will be included in these discussions. This will in no way be a beautiful or perfect set of arrangements. If we manage to achieve some sort of transitional Government of national unity, we will have done extremely well.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, join in the congratulations that have been expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on giving us this opportunity to deal with violations of Article 18 around the world, in particular the violations by Muslim on Muslim which have been mentioned by all three noble Lords who have spoken so far.

I want to ask what the Government are doing in particular about the assassinations and massacres of Shia Muslims in Pakistan by the terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, and Tehreek-e-Taliban. These organisations share a common ideology based on returning to the principles of governance and legal systems that they believe were followed by the rightly guided caliphs who succeeded the Prophet in the 7th century. They share a hatred of other forms of Islam, including particularly the Shia, who form 20% of the population of Pakistan. However, anybody who does not share the terrorists’ medieval beliefs is seen as a target, including Ahmadi Muslims and Christians, who are also victims of targeted assassinations and legal persecution under the blasphemy laws.

To see the destination to which these people would take Pakistan, look at what is happening in the areas of Syria and Iraq occupied by ISIS, a similar band of off-the-wall genocidal thugs. They have executed thousands of Shia and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, are driving out the 4,000 year-old Christian community of Mosul after stripping them of all their property. The Pakistani fundamentalists say on the internet and at public meetings that the Shia are infidels who must be killed. In 2013, the International Imam Hussain Council recorded nearly 700 Shia murders. The actual number was higher because reports dried up after media workers were killed and threatened.

The Pakistan army has launched a major operation against the terrorist bases in North Waziristan, but military action is also needed to counter the terrorism in Sindh and Punjab. The anti-crime campaign in Karachi, which has been going on for nearly a year, has not been a success. The newspaper Dawn reported that, in the first few months, several TTP killers had been arrested but their political masters raised a hue and cry. Both Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif supported Aurangzeb Farooqi, head of the ASWJ, when he stood under the banner of the Wahhabi alliance at the 2013 elections. He was one of 53 alleged terrorists whose candidature raised not a word of protest from the conventional parties. These parties are naive enough to believe in the existence of the “good Taliban” who can be persuaded to play by the rules of democracy and the UDHR. But when negotiations were attempted in February, there was no sign that the terrorists would abandon their objective of transforming Pakistan into a Wahhabi caliphate.

The spread of violent extremism in Sindh, and in Karachi in particular, is fuelled by the growth of religious seminaries peddling a doctrine similar to Wahhabism and funded by sources in the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia in particular. According to the New York Times, there are 4,000 of these seminaries across Sindh and the ASWJ has signed up 50,000 members in the province in parallel. In Islamabad, 26 unauthorised Deobandi mosques provide sanctuary to TTP-ASWJ terrorists. There is no system of inspection of mosques to ensure that their curriculum is within the law—a matter which should interest us in view of the revelations about schools in Birmingham.

It is the ideology that says God orders its adherents to kill people with different beliefs that needs to be eliminated. The UN Human Rights Council should identify and block the funding that spreads religious hatred, and we should press far more robustly for the infamous blasphemy laws in Pakistan to be repealed.

In April, the Select Committee on International Development asked the Government to produce clear evidence that our aid programme was effective in reducing the extremist threat in Pakistan. In response, the Government pointed out that,

“Education is vital to transforming Pakistan’s future and is where a significant proportion of our funds are directed. This is firmly in the UK’s own national interest”.

However, the country has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, and the popularity of the madrassas is largely due to the inadequacy of the public education system. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister will elaborate on how we assess value for money in our educational spending in Pakistan and how it combats religious hatred and intolerance.