Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (European Affairs Committee Sub-Committee Report)
Lord Bew Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bew (CB)
I rise, as so many other noble Lords have done, to praise the work of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and his committee. I have attended several of the public sessions and have given evidence at a private session. Perhaps most remarkably, last Wednesday’s session from the pharmaceutical industry was really interesting about how we have not actually resolved the problem, as many people believe, of medicines yet for Northern Ireland. It was very important evidence, to which I hope the Government pay attention.
I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said today, but I want to add one thing. He ended by saying that Northern Ireland is part of the EU single market. It is also part of the UK single market, and the protocol commits the EU to respecting the functioning of the UK single market. It is a complicated matter, but it is right there in the protocol. How we do it is rather difficult, but it is there—it is part of the UK single market as well. That is the difficulty in making it work properly. It is not the GB single market but the UK single market.
Briefly, it is clear—and I was struck by the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan—that there are newly revitalised talks. On the day when the Northern Ireland protocol had Second Reading in this House, there was a regret amendment, and it was widely said across this House that the introduction of that Bill would doom those talks and be a most dreadfully provocative thing to happen. It is a matter of fact and an absolute certainty that that was not a correct line of argument. We are not at the point yet where we can say with confidence that there will be a workable deal, but the deal that there already has been on the transfer of data between the UK and the European Union is a sine qua non for a workable deal. Those are positive things, and we meet at a moment of much greater positivity than usual.
I wanted to say something else about my noble friend’s report, which is in many ways a landmark report. I give one reason for that. Every speaker so far has reflected the theme of the report—the democratic deficit. I remember when the May version of the protocol was published; there was not even a mention of the Northern Ireland Assembly, reflecting EU pressure. For six months or so there was an argument behind the scenes but, for a long while, legal officers of the May Government were under inquiry from journalists referring to the Matthews case in Gibraltar, which raises the question about how you can impose things top-down with no democratic assent. That case, which is very important in European law, was dismissed, and for six months there was a solid position—it was not a problem. We are now in a totally different world.
To be fair to the May Government, by about March 2019, in the Statement made by the Brexit Secretary on 12 March and made in this House by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, the position gradually changed. The move began towards accepting that there was a problem with democratic deficit, and there is now total consensus in this place. There were 200 or more MPs who voted for that Bill without worrying one bit about the total absence of democratic deficit. Now there is a new consensus, and I welcome it, but it is important to note that it is part of the development of an argument. As the report of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, says, it is important that the protocol in its eventual working be compliant with the Good Friday agreement. It was very hard to argue that for six months but, eventually, the Brexit Secretary in his Statement in the Commons on 12 March finally acknowledged that it was a reasonable request and a reasonable argument.
This report is a landmark: it represents a transformation of the terms of the debate on this subject as was. We owe it to the Irish officials, who spoke so honestly about the British negotiating defeat in 2017 and expressed their surprise publicly to Politico, and talked about the consequences of that humiliation. That was the function, above all, of the May Government effectively having lost the general election and being desperate to get into talks at any price. We owe it to the Taoiseach—and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, referred to the fact that he said that the protocol was too strict, when many people in this House and many in the Northern Ireland Assembly were full implementers. The Taoiseach repeated it after the EU’s recent statement, saying that the protocol was still a thing; he repeated again that it was too strict. So we owe a lot to the honesty of Irish politicians and civil servants, but we are now in a new place. The quality of the work and the detail in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, is excellent, and on the substantive matters it has achieved much and reflects much of the new reality.
Northern Ireland Protocol Bill
Lord Bew ExcerptsMonday 7th November 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022-23 View all Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 52-IV Forth marshalled list for Committee - (3 Nov 2022)
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for introducing the amendment; much that she said is extremely pertinent.
It is useful at this point to remind the Committee of quite why we are in this predicament over veterinary matters. From one point of view, you can acknowledge it as a simple function of our departure from the European Union. However, the protocol, in both the May and Johnson versions, contains a way of handling veterinary matters, which is essentially to say, “We will not accept UK veterinary testing. Pirbright is gone and you are out of the system. The only form of veterinary testing we will be able to accept is that within the European Union itself”—presumably, in the case of Ireland, in Dublin. In the EU documents of the time, there are rather interesting green pictures with little arrows showing power departing from the island of Ireland to the EU, which has now taken control of this area.
There is an obvious basic problem with that. The Good Friday agreement, whose importance has been increasingly acknowledged and accepted, was not accepted as the prior agreement when we began this debate, but I notice with pleasure that it is increasingly accepted as the key agreement; that has some significance, as it was not when we opened these discussions. The Good Friday agreement established food safety and animal health boards. For the life of me, I have never known why, in the negotiation, it was quite so necessary to have the approach of extraction of powers from the island of Ireland to the EU that the protocol, lodged by the May Government and signed by the Johnson Government, contains.
That is another example of why what the Good Friday agreement suggests, and obvious pathways that follow from everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said, should be followed, rather than a strict obsessive acceptance of the fact that, “We signed it in this protocol and therefore it can’t be changed”. A negotiation is going on and it is bound to touch on these matters. In this case, as in so many others—including, I dare say, the issue we have been discussing for the last half hour—the canopy for the settlement is acceptance of the Good Friday agreement and the way in which it approached this problem. Then you get into the possibility of consensus and agreement.
It is not all the UK Government’s fault that they find themselves, to put it mildly, on the back foot. It is arguable that they have not behaved particularly effectively in sorting this problem out, but it is not all their fault. The root of the matter is the failure of the EU to understand—and how could it?—the north-south dimension of the Good Friday agreement. That failure is radically revealed in Michel Barnier’s memoir in these documents. The explanation has been given in various books and articles by the officials involved on the Irish side in Dublin in the negotiation on the 2017 agreement, which then set the template for the two later agreements. The explanation is that the Irish Government appropriated a particular version of the Good Friday agreement—their version—and sold it to the EU, and it was accepted in Europe and by us. We cannot revisit any of these issues in any simple sense but it remains an intellectual reality that is the clue to understanding how we can redress these processes.
All these problems that seem so insoluble—I absolutely respect the spirit in which the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, moved the amendment—are much more easily resolved if we follow what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said, accept the prior importance of the Good Friday agreement and realise that the institutions and the concepts to be found there are the institutions and concepts that provide the basis for a benign compromise that both the UK and the EU can live with.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendment because it goes to the heart of the protocol and the protocol Bill issues in relation to the need for an SPS veterinary agreement. The dairy and farming industries on the island of Ireland require an SPS agreement. I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Caine, today, following last week’s debate on this issue following further discussions with elements of the dairy industry. The bottom line is that unless there is an SPS agreement, that could very much interfere with our dairy industry and totally undermine it.
I shall give a short explanation from the letter. Those in the dairy industry acknowledge the issues that the Northern Ireland retail sector is dealing with regarding the protocol and support for a dual regulatory regime, but such a regime would not work for the dairy industry because we are looking at the very survival of Northern Ireland dairy farmers. Approximately 30% of all Northern Ireland milk is processed in the Republic of Ireland because there is not the capacity to do so in Northern Ireland. It may be worth visiting some of the processing factories in Northern Ireland that are part of a greater co-operative group to see what they do and what they are trying to tell us.
If you create a hard border for milk, which the dual regulatory scheme outlined in the Bill will, there will be enormous environmental issues. Northern Ireland does not have the capacity to dump 30% of its milk, and milk has special regulations for its disposal. You could then move to the culling of perfectly healthy animals which, in a cost of living crisis, is inconceivable. Finally, this would lead to devastating consequences for the economy of Northern Ireland, as the agri-food industry is its bedrock.
So I say to the Minister that those in the dairy industry have looked at the impact of a 30% reduction in sales to an average Northern Ireland farmer. When you consider their average interest on loans and their loan repayments, this would result in an annual negative cash flow. In other words, their costs would be greater than their income.
In summation, it is vitally important that the negotiations achieve an SPS veterinary agreement. From what I have read in the non-papers from the EU of October last year, it is very prepared to enter into such an agreement as part of the negotiations. However, the dual regulatory regime will not work for the agri-food sector. Maybe a bespoke arrangement is required for the retail sector where some of the problems lie.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for this amendment. She knows from many discussions and from what I have said in this House that, despite the distinguished legal heft behind her argument on the Acts of Union, I do not accept it. By the way, I do not accept the argument that the protocol subjugates the Acts of Union, but I do not want to repeat things that I and others have said during this debate.
However, the noble Baroness’s speech is very important for a particular reason. I look over at the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and remember that we were all in exactly the same place in April 1998—in favour of the agreement. All of us were determined to get that agreement going. The speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, reflected a significant degree of disillusionment, largely provoked by events since the protocol.
The issue that the noble Baroness homed in on was the Acts of Union. The White Paper which preceded the Bill does not reference the issues around the Acts of Union, whereas the Bill does. It is more briefly than the noble Baroness would like, but it none the less references upholding the Acts of Union. That reflects the deterioration that has occurred in public opinion in Northern Ireland, even since the publication of the White Paper. The Government decided—I understand for tactical reasons—to include a reference to the Acts of Union in the Bill.
We have listened tonight to quite a lot of esteemed legal opinion, but the truth is that this is a political problem. It has to be faced up to. The truth is that we are in a very difficult moment when it comes to the possibility of making the Good Friday agreement’s institutions operate as we head toward its 25th anniversary. The strong conviction that I have—I think the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, also feels this—is that there is no other show in town, and so that is what we should be working to do.
One of the reasons why I am a little uncomfortable about the eloquent discourses on Henry VIII powers—I have been in this House long enough to have heard many such—is the point forcefully made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, tonight. The House gets very excited about Henry VIII powers when it suspects that the uses will not be loved by the House but, when it is a Henry VIII power which is pretty unpopular with large sections of opinion in Northern Ireland, the House has no qualms. We have seen it most recently on the abortion issue. What matters is not Henry VIII powers but the purposes to which they are put, and in this case the purposes to which these powers would be put would be essentially dealing not with a sea of anonymity but with EU interventions of one sort or another in the laws of the United Kingdom.
The way in which the House approaches this really makes me uncomfortable, because it is an attitude of mind that does not reflect the political nature of the problem. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, as a very esteemed legal mind in this House, actually faced up to what the Good Friday agreement, an international agreement, says quite clearly at Article 1(5). He used the expression: “You cannot live with long-term alienation.” The British Government—the sovereign Government—have a responsibility to address the long-term alienation of a community, as they did only recently on the Irish language. There is no question about that. “Alienation” is a perfectly fair translation, but that piece of legislation actually says that the British Government as the sovereign Government have to deal on the basis of equality of esteem with the long-term aspirations of both communities. There is no question but that the protocol as it now stands is seen by the unionist community as a whole as flouting its long-term aspirations.
I suppose that just after Brexit came into our lives—unhappily, for many—former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who was present in 1998, came to this House and addressed the House of Lords Select Committee. He said, “You can talk all you like about Europe but there is the little matter of the Good Friday agreement, held as an international agreement in the United Nations.” The House has tended to forget that. Therefore, while I am sympathetic to the fundamental legal thrusts at the beginning of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, the fact that many people in Northern Ireland will see her case as, if anything, too soft and too moderate is a sign of how we are losing control of public opinion in Northern Ireland and our ability to intervene in that public opinion. That is extremely worrying.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, who was in his place earlier this evening, is quite right: we cannot afford to give the impression that Northern Ireland is an ungovernable entity. There must be a return to power sharing. I will be clear about this: it will not occur on any other basis than a renewed form of historic compromise. We should take the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, as a warning about how public mood is evolving away from compromise, and all the lectures on Henry VIII powers in the world are not anything like as significant as that fact for the political history of this country.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I have three amendments in this group but, before referring to them, I say that obviously this set of amendments really deals with the restrictions on the use of ministerial powers. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to the kernel of the issue, which is about the politics of Northern Ireland. I think that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, also said. Obviously, as a democratic Irish nationalist I come from a very different position, and I make no bones about it. In the fullness of time, subject to agreement and to consent, I would like to see the island of Ireland politically united, but that is united according to the principle of consent and united by agreement. The land is already united, but I mean the uniting of people on the island.
In this discourse, we must not forget that we have to move towards compromise and achieve it. I go back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Murphy: the most important thing is that there is an urgent need for the parties in Northern Ireland to be directly involved in the negotiations with the UK, the Irish Government and the EU. Unless that happens, we will go down the road of technical negotiations and discussions ad infinitum but they will not solve the political issues that exist, and those political issues urgently require to be resolved if we are to have the restoration of political institutions.
In that context, I pose this question: do all parties and all peoples want those political institutions restored? For my part, I would like them restored because they are based on the principle of consent and it is all about power sharing and co-operation. Because of the nature of the divided society in Northern Ireland, it cannot go any other way and the only solution is via the Good Friday agreement. I hope we will get back to that, and the best way to do it is through negotiations between not only the UK and the EU but the parties in Northern Ireland that are most directly affected, representing all the people, and of course the Irish Government, who could take on the role of the EU or work in partnership with the EU as a member state.
Amendment 46 seeks to circumscribe and limit the regulations to ensure adherence to Northern Ireland Assembly approval for a legislative consent Motion. The regulations are referred to only in the Bill; they are not specified and will be subject to secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to Henry VIII powers. If this were just about Henry VIII powers then it might be quite simple, but it comes back to the overarching umbrella of the political situation and the need for a political solution. Here, there is a total disregard for the democratic consent of the Assembly and the importance of what it is there to do as an organ of the Good Friday agreement. It is important that that is built into this legislation, although obviously I would prefer that the legislation was not there and that it was replaced totally by negotiations.
Amendment 54 seeks the agreement of the First and Deputy First Ministers acting jointly on behalf of the Executive or Assembly. In that, I am building in joint accountability. There is a case for reverting to the appointment of the Ministers jointly as joint First Ministers. In fact the noble Lord, Lord Empey, referred to the earlier situation where, at St Andrews, that principle was undermined. Appointing Ministers and calling them joint First Ministers would emphasise power sharing, co-operation and jointery. It would recognise the principle of consent as prescribed by the Good Friday agreement, and it would get away from the idea of one side saying, “Make me First Minister”, and the other side saying, “No, make me First Minister”. We have to ensure that equality and parity of esteem are recognised in the Bill if the Bill is to go ahead.
Amendment 55 proposes a new clause requiring the Minister yet again to obtain the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly to exercise the power to make regulations conferred by the Bill. It would also require a Minister to obtain the consent of the Assembly for the continued application of the regulations beyond the relevant period. It would therefore require the consent and the accountability of the Assembly. There should be no imposition of these unspecified regulations without the agreement of the Assembly. The fundamental point is that the people of Northern Ireland and their elected representatives in the Assembly are key and fundamental to the whole process, and should be directly involved in the negotiations in deciding the way forward.
Northern Ireland Protocol Bill
Lord Bew ExcerptsMonday 31st October 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022-23 View all Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 52-III Third marshalled list for Committee - (31 Oct 2022)
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Suttie in her amendments. Notwithstanding the appeal from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, these Benches do not need to be persuaded of his arguments. We are nevertheless tasked with scrutinising and testing this legislation, and I support my noble friend’s amendments.
I want to ask the Minister just two simple questions relating to the Sewel convention, which is now recognised as a constitutional principle. Michael Ellis, speaking on behalf of the Government in Committee in the Commons, was asked about legislative consent of this Bill. He said:
“As the hon. Member for North Down will be aware, the Sewel convention applies to this Bill, as it does to all Bills of this Parliament that intersect with devolved competence. I confirm that in the absence of functioning institutions, senior officials in the Foreign Office have already made contact with the head of the Northern Ireland civil service regarding legislative consent … The Government will consult stakeholders in Northern Ireland, including Members of the Assembly, on the operation of the Bill during its passage and thereafter”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/22; cols. 385-86.]
What did the officials ask of the civil servants with regard to legislative consent in the absence of there being an Assembly? This is not a practice that has ever been seen anywhere else for the operation of the Sewel Motion. Which Members of the Assembly have been consulted during the passage of this Bill, and on what? Have they been asked, with regard to the dual regulatory regime that the Bill proposes, and what have their responses been so far?
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I rise to put a technical point. I am not sure of the answer—it is a genuine question—but it bears on the amendment. Trade is a reserved matter in Northern Ireland. When there was first sight of Theresa May’s protocol, there was great rage in Northern Ireland. People in Northern Ireland were told, “Sorry, this is a reserved matter.” Subsequently—it was the second iteration—it was very much the view of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, that that was not itself a satisfactory answer, and there is provision in the protocol negotiated by the Johnson Government. The one significant change is to make, in very specific circumstances, a role for the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is probably the major difference between the two protocols. However, if it is a reserved matter—if that was the answer that I remember being given throughout 2017 and 2018 in this House—I cannot quite see the purchase of these amendments.
If it is a reserved matter, it is a reserved matter. It is for this Parliament to deal with these trade matters. The burden of the Bill is in dealing with Articles 5 and 10 of the protocol—not those on human rights and so on—in a way which, I accept, many Members of this House do not like. None the less, it does not seem appropriate to be raising these issues now about that role for the Northern Ireland Assembly, because trade is a reserved matter held by this House.
The history of this is perfectly clear: the Government of Ireland Act 1920 has language on trade, as do the prior Acts of Union 1800. Then there were modifications to the Government of Ireland Act—benign modernisations, I would say—under the Good Friday agreement and the legislation that went through this House, which left us with trade as a reserved matter. It seems to me that this should be taken into account. There may be some possible answer to it, and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has negotiated a possible way that one might work around it, but trade is a reserved matter at this point. We are not concerned with the human rights provisions of the protocol and so on; they are not the issue in the Bill. It is directed mainly against Articles 5 and 10, rightly or wrongly—wrongly, I am sure many colleagues on my own Benches think—but trade being a reserved matter is a problem for amendments of this sort.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I agree that external trade is a reserved matter, but here we are talking about trade inside the United Kingdom—as well as trade inside the single market of the European Union, of course. I do not think it follows at all that one can say there is no role for the Assembly because external trade is a reserved matter.
I would love to support the amendment in the names of the two noble Baronesses. I agree with the spirit of it. It is extraordinary how, throughout this saga, things have been done to Northern Ireland without Northern Ireland being fully consulted or even informed. It is extraordinary, when you think about it, that the protocol was concluded without the involvement—I want to embarrass him now—of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, who knows far more about these issues than most of us do and has a judgment that we would all respect. That should have been brought to bear.
I hesitate to criticise the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who is busy with his emails, but, if he would like to listen, I will criticise him. It would have been good if he had found the ability to spend more time in Northern Ireland while he was negotiating. It would have been great if his master, the then Prime Minister, had been able to spend some time trying to understand the issues and seeing people on the ground, but it is an astonishing fact that Michel Barnier had more direct personal experience of Northern Ireland than the noble Lord, Lord Frost, had. That was because Barnier had spent time there doing jobs for previous presidents of the Commission.
I feel that the syndrome of imposing things on Northern Ireland, perhaps under cover of talk about reserved matters, which I disagree with, has been damaging to the United Kingdom and, of course, to Northern Ireland. I would love to support these amendments, and of course I would do so. But it would not make an illegal act less illegal if the Northern Ireland Assembly voted for it, so what are we talking about here?
I caused the Minister to look askance when I said that we are talking about a pig of a Bill. The Minister thought that was an indelicate reference. However, what we are doing here is trying to put lipstick on the pig. It will still be a pig even if this amendment is approved. If it were put to a vote, of course I would vote for it, but my general feeling is that we know what we have to do with this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has correctly pointed out that what we are engaged in now is a waste of time because I am confident that at the end of the day, we will do what we have to do to this Bill. I hope the end of the day comes soon.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, set out this group of amendments, he rightly said that Clause 4 is at the heart of the Bill, and the debate has really encapsulated that point.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. We will have several debates about the scope of the delegated powers proposed, but as this is the first group dealing with the reports by the DPRRC, it is worth recalling just how unprecedented these were. The DPRRC has chosen on a number of occasions to publish a report while a Bill is still in the Commons—there is nothing unusual in that—but rarely has it been so scathing, labelling the Bill
“unprecedented in its cavalier treatment of Parliament, the EU and the Government’s own international obligations”,
as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said.
The committee was unable to propose tweaks to various powers in the Bill, including those in Clause 4. Instead, it recommended gutting several key clauses. As mentioned in the debate, the Government opted not to respond to the DPRRC before we moved into Committee, even though they had from July to do so. It is hard to see how the two sides can meet in the middle, so, if we proceed to Report, it is quite possible that this House will have to strip out several clauses.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, made interesting points when he talked about the previous level of scrutiny of EU law, in which this House played a very prominent part. I am sure many Members of this House served on those committees. The EU Committee scrutinised legislation, as did this House and a whole series of committees, and the House of Commons, of course. That was a far higher level of scrutiny than anything being proposed at the moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, asked an interesting question—and he was fair in saying it was a genuine question—about the alternatives to this multitude of Henry VIII powers. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response. It seems to me that the alternative is to go through things in detail, as the old EU committee structure in this House used to do routinely. I will be interested to hear the answer to the noble Lord’s question.
We are sympathetic to this group of amendments. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is going to do but we are happy to support him.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I am well aware of the sensitivity in this House regarding Henry VIII powers, and I respect that; it is a serious argument. However, Northern Ireland looks at these things from an angle that is not entirely the way the House of Lords looks at them. For one thing, there are what you might call Louis XIV powers all over the place in terms of European law and regulations, but there is silence about that.
The second issue, which has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, is that again and again, we have had the most dramatic demonstrations of Henry VIII powers in areas where I and other Members, a majority in your Lordships’ House, are in agreement—abortion laws and so on. We do it all the time. When we as a local assembly like it, when it is our kind of opinion, we have no problems. When we do not like what is proposed, we discover that this application of Henry VIII powers is intrinsically terrible. To be blunt, the House needs to avoid looking totally hypocritical on this point.
I feel that I have been living for a very long time with Article 16 and the potential illegality or otherwise of the Government’s legislation. When I first encountered it, in fact, it was Article 15 in Theresa May’s Bill; it was that long ago. I read and reread it until I was blue in the face. Let me say what the problem is in attempting to challenge the Government’s position. The best argument against the current position in the legislation is that Article 16 could be and should have been applied. At the moment, it is ridiculous. We are in the middle of a serious negotiation with the EU and it would break that up, so it is fatuous and politically absurd. Apart from the principle of reality, I can see why people want to argue that, but it is not going to happen now because the Government want this legislation with the EU to succeed. In the Financial Times as recently as September, the EU was defining the application of Article 16 as an outrage and so on. The situation would simply be aggravated.
The other weak point of this argument is that saying, “We want Article 16 but nothing else” is the sound of one hand clapping. None of those who have argued for it in this House since Second Reading has shown any grasp of the central difficulty of the relationship between the two treaties and their interaction. If you are going to argue, as distinguished international lawyers have done before both our Select Committees, that the Government have a case of sorts but Article 16 should be applied first, that is based on the idea that there is an interaction between the two treaties and this is the best way of acting to defend the Good Friday agreement. That is a perfectly respectable intellectual legal argument, but it just does not fit with the political moment we find ourselves in, with ongoing negotiations.
The sensitivity that people in this Chamber have about the attitudes and feelings of the EU is quite remarkable when they do not seem to feel it themselves; they feel that they are quite adult enough to get on with this negotiation anyway, regardless of the Bill. As I pointed out, the Irish Foreign Secretary said openly that they do not like the Bill but that is not a reason for not having the negotiations. Still, it is wonderful to see people stick up for other people’s rights and interests when they themselves do not seem quite so keen or worked up about the subject.
The main point is that just saying “Article 16” is simply one hand clapping. The only possible viable argument is to say—as indeed both the House of Commons and our own Select Committee have been told—that that is indeed the way you could use it to get a result. The best criticism of the Government is that you cannot really prove necessity unless you have gone down this route. It so happens that the Government are stuck in a moment of real politics, the real negotiation that is going on, so they cannot do it, but the majority of speakers in this House say, “I would like Article 16”. That is an amazing recent conversion to Article 16. A few months ago, most of us hated it and regarded even talking about it as a piece of British brutishness. Now we really love it because we prefer it to the Bill. Unless you add to that that you accept that there is a real problem with the interaction between this agreement and the Good Friday agreement, as the former Lord Chancellor said in the House of Commons, then, in the Chinese phrase, it is just one hand clapping.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, raises a fascinating conundrum, but what he said about Article 16 was based on a misunderstanding of what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said earlier. I do not think I have met anybody in this House who believes that the right course of action, in abstract, is to use Article 16. The right course of action is to apply the treaty that we signed: that is what a lot of us believe. Clearly, there are others who take a different view. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, was making—which is clearly correct, and has been made several times by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—was that there is Article 16. It exists. It is the designated route—the agreed route, the treaty route—to deal with a dispute about the implementation of the protocol. I am not saying that we should be using Article 16. I am saying that we should not be using another means and pretending that it is legal so to do while Article 16 exists. That seems to be the rub of it.
I will try to deal in an amateur way with the interesting questions from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. I do not know the answer either, but one answer would be the Irish answer: “I wouldn’t be starting from here.” I am sure that the noble Lord agrees with me that if you read Clause 18(1) or Clause 22(1) and (2) of the Bill, the only question in your mind is: is this Lewis Carroll or is it Stalin? These are astonishing powers taken for the Minister, by regulation, to do whatever he likes, providing it is broadly to do with Northern Ireland. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the reports that we have seen from three committees—but particularly the Delegated Powers Committee—are devastating. I cannot remember seeing in this House such strong language used in a unanimously agreed cross-party report.
The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, would agree with me that we do not want to be in this situation. There must be another solution. As a former negotiator, I would say that it is crucial to avoid putting the ball in your own net. Frankly, attempting this legislation while also attempting—or claiming to be attempting—to conduct negotiations, is absurd. Here I part company with my friend the noble Lord, Lord Frost, whose third argument today was exploded by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. He said that it is necessary for negotiating reasons to advance this protocol; this is what will make the other side sit up and pay attention. You cannot argue both necessity and that. In my view, you would be mad to argue that, because on the other side of the table it is not a playground spat. On the other side of the table is a grown-up group of 27 countries that believe in the rule of law and are concerned that bad precedents should not be set. They cannot possibly concede that, because there is a blunderbuss on the table, they must give you what you are asking for in negotiations. They are not going to do that. Therefore, my answer to the conundrum of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is that it is a great mistake to legislate in these terms while you are negotiating. If Ministers are telling the truth about their wish to negotiate a solution to this, the last thing they should be doing is putting forward this Bill.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I will not rehearse what I said previously about Article 16, but I will see if I can answer the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. If you are faced with two instruments that appear to be in conflict—which I think is what we are arguing—the first thing you do is have a detailed analysis of these instruments to see whether there is a provision in them that will enable you to reconcile the difference. The advantage of Article 16 has just been set out by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. You are adhering to the treaty by using a term within the treaty that helps you avoid being in conflict with the other treaty. That is a possible way of doing it.
Lord Bew (CB)
If I may intervene briefly, I have tried to explain that I had an intense relationship with Article 16 when it was deeply unfashionable in this House. Many times in the last year, I have wanted to argue privately with the Government that it should be applied. The arguments made for it are impeccable and have been for years; that is simply the case. The problem is that this is not conceivably a rational moment. There are complaints about the Bill. Does it matter what the Irish Foreign Minister says? It is said that it does not matter; we are choosing to disregard it. This is a moment when we are negotiating seriously with the EU. Suddenly to come in and say, “By the way”—and the logic is, in general terms, superb—“we are applying Article 16 now”, is bound to be destructive of the negotiations that are proceeding. We must respect the reality of the moment.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
But if the consequence of doing so is to embrace a Bill which drives a horse and cart through the procedures and principles by which this Parliament operates, surely that is an inhibition and we should avoid it at all costs.
Middle East
Lord Bew Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Anglo Israel Association, in which position I am proud to say I follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, who spoke earlier.
I will address the aftermath of Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock’s remarks in Israel on the subject of boycott. Obviously I welcome his remarks, but we are at the beginning of a difficult phase. The Government must accept that there will be a reaction. It is necessary not simply to assert, as the Cabinet Minister did quite rightly in Israel, that trade between Israel and the United Kingdom is at record high levels, but to realise that there will be a strong challenge. It can be dealt with only by insisting that the Government cannot be complicit in the acceptance of a version of the history and conflict of the Middle East that stigmatises one side only.
That is the fundamental problem with the boycott movement. In many respects you can say that it has been singularly ineffectual, but none the less it is based on the idea that it is possible to proceed on the basis that the root of the problem lies with one side of the debate only. For example, I say on behalf of the Anglo Israel Association that I would be very unhappy—I think the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, would be equally unhappy—if any of the groups we encourage to go to Israel were set on a programme where they met only Israelis and not Palestinian speakers, who would put different points of view. That is fundamental to the approach that we adopt. It is very important that we argue, in the struggle for a two-state solution, that any approach based on the stigmatisation of one group is unacceptable. Make no mistake: in the aftermath of the recent statements made in Israel by Matthew Hancock, we are in for an ideological struggle.
Middle East Peace Settlement
Lord Bew Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for securing this debate. In his fine book, surveying the EU’s role in the Middle East since the Six-Day War, Professor Rory Miller of King’s College London argued that here was the classic example of Willy Brandt’s famous dictum about the EU—that it was an “economic giant” but a “political dwarf”. That book was published in 2011. It might be argued that we are now at a different moment, thanks to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton—and this debate has been inspired by the sense that we are to a degree at a different moment. But I will add just a small word of caution.
The United States, whoever the President might be, still remains the key player, rather than the EU, in the Middle East. It is quite clear that, for Iran, the key development is the long-term, back-channel discussions with the United States. I would also ask a question of the EU’s current role in another significant aspect of what is going on in the Middle East: namely, the changing relationship between Israel and the Arab Gulf countries. Again, it is not clear precisely what the EU’s role is.
In saying that, I am not endorsing the dismissive attitude of the Israeli elite towards the EU over quite a period of time, which I think has been a mistake. However, I am saying that the EU has never found a consensus on using its economic power to gain political concessions from Israel, and so far its strategy has not worked. I would argue that, instead, the EU should focus on what it does well—state-building and creating an environment in which Israelis and Palestinians feel comfortable in engaging with each other in areas of mutual benefit, such as water and energy. The EU currently funds the Palestine Academy for Science and Technology, and could do even more to help the high-tech companies and thousands of technology graduates in the Palestinian territories.
Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, I was glad to see the compromise reached by the EU and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, with Tzipi Livni, on the subject of the Horizon 2020 programme, which will enhance Israel’s scientific co-operation with Europe. I would like to stress not only that this is to the benefit of Israel, but that it is not in the EU’s interests to drive Israel towards China and India. We have important interests of our own in ensuring the utmost co-operation with Israel’s scientific community.
Israel: Arab Citizens
Lord Bew Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Bew
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter for securing this important debate. I start by conceding his critical point that precisely because, in the terms of the overall resolution of the problems of the Middle East, we are, unfortunately, in a period of conflict management rather than conflict resolution, the question of Israel’s minority becomes, in a way, even more important. I declare an interest as chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association and, as the function of that body is to promote understanding between the United Kingdom and Israel, this debate provides an excellent opportunity to do just that.
I want to step back and take a historical perspective before returning to the nub of the debate as it has been defined thus far. Going back to the early part of the last century, school textbooks in the United Kingdom said to young readers that we are a mongrel people and that this was a matter to be proud of. In the United Kingdom it is now accepted that all people, no matter what their colour, background or class, have a right to equality of treatment, and it is one of our most profound defining features as a liberal democracy that we attempt to deliver equality of treatment for all our citizens. Even so, it has to be accepted that even in the United Kingdom at this time we sometimes fail quite markedly in the achievement of that objective. In Northern Ireland, where I come from, the watchword for United Kingdom government policy for several decades was, “equality of esteem for both traditions”, but we can see, even in the past fortnight or so in Belfast, in the riots that have occurred, how difficult it can be to achieve that objective of equality of traditions where these disputes of ethnic, national and religious identity exist.
Israel, however, is a state that exists in quite a different context. Like another liberal, democratic state, the Republic of Ireland, its existence significantly reflects the trauma of one particular ethnic and religious group. In the Republic of Ireland’s case, the brutal trauma is the Great Famine. In Israel’s case it is the Holocaust, a far worse example of trauma than the Great Famine because it was a deliberate, intentional genocide characterised by repeated actions by human individuals—human agency—on a large scale. The Jewish state, like the Irish Catholic state, accepts and has always accepted, as noble Lords have conceded, a responsibility towards its minorities; but as both states have shown, given the importance of one group in the raison d'être of the state, it is a responsibility which is not always easy to discharge. Indeed, it is particularly difficult to discharge. In the first several decades of the history of the Irish Republic the Protestant population dropped markedly and radically. The Irish Republic has much liberalised in recent years, but the tragic death of a young Indian woman in hospital in Galway is a reminder of the continuing existence of the outlook of one religious tradition in the practices of that society.
When we talk about the case of Israel it is widely accepted that by certain criteria which are supposed to be important to us in the West—freedom of speech, women’s rights, gay rights, the protection of educational opportunity—Israel is a beacon in the region, far ahead of any other country. For example, and on a difficult point, in recent days there have been pro-Assad demonstrations in different parts of Israel and they have gone ahead peacefully. These are difficult questions for Israeli society but it seems to be rather better at handling them than many other countries in the region. It is said by some that that is only to be expected of Israel, though it is apparently not expected by all in the West of its neighbours.
Then one must look at the role of Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, the Parliament of Israel. To take one important and dramatic example, George Karra, a Christian Arab, was the presiding judge in the trial of a former Israeli President. It is inconceivable in any other country in the region that a member of a religious minority could play such a role. Mention has been made of Christian Arabs, but there is no doubt that by every known statistic Christian Arabs are a very successful and vital group, a spectacularly successful group, it could be said, in the society of Israel. Again, it is sometimes said with judicial appointments in Israel, in the United States and in this country, that there is an element of tokenism. Perhaps, but even so, it seems a pretty striking example.
Mention has already been made of Israel’s declaration of independence and its promise of political, economic and social equality to all citizens, as well as the fact that Israel has laws against discrimination in employment. Is this just empty rhetoric? Taking it broadly, Israeli Arabs have an employment rate of 72.2% as against 77.7% for the rest of society. There is a disadvantage there in absolute terms of numbers; it is not a particularly startling or spectacular disadvantage. It is probably the case, I would accept, that Israeli Arabs have less well paid jobs—the point has already been made—but in terms of absolute figures in employment, it is not a dramatic disadvantage.
Let me take another figure—I often think it is the most important figure, and it is the one I always ask about; it is the figure that gives, for example, the proof of the advance of Northern Irish Catholics over the past 20 years—and that is the figure for medical students in university. This tells us a lot about the educational opportunities of relative communities and a lot about the possible future life chances of the brighter children in those communities. It is a good, simple way of looking at the problem. In the case of Israeli Arabs, they are 20% of the population of Israel and 19% of the students in Israeli medical schools. This seems a very significant fact to me. Mention has been made of South Africa and apartheid: does any noble Lord recall any figure remotely like that in the case of South Africa? I cannot.
So there are important considerations. There is not absolute equality of opportunity in Israel, I am very clear in my mind about that. There is a fundamental problem and a difficult problem to resolve. Some of the successes of the Israeli state in this respect should perhaps be recorded and acknowledged more fully than they have been.
Let me take one other very significant aspect of Israeli reality which I think that everyone who knows anything about the country is aware of. At the beginning of this century the magazine Kul Al-Arab carried out a survey of Israeli Arabs in towns adjacent to the West Bank and, consistently and by a large majority, those people resisted transfer to Arab rule. What is that telling us? Is it a meaningless finding? It cannot be; it tells us something about what life is like, for all its difficulties, in being an Arab under Israeli rule. Only last year the Council on Foreign Relations—a distinguished body in New York—and Princeton University carried out a poll in Jerusalem which asked its Arabs how they would stand on this matter. They discovered that a large slice of the Arabs in Jerusalem would prefer to remain in Israel. These findings, which are not seriously disputed, tell us what it is like to be an Arab in Israel despite there being many difficulties in that and they ought to be more respected than they have been thus far in this debate.
Finally, I hope that I have said enough to indicate that the problem is complex and that the implementation of liberal ideals is not always easy. At the moment, the Israeli press is full of considerable concern about racist chanting at football matches. If you read our own press in the past few weeks, you will also see considerable concern about racist chanting at football matches in this country. Reference has been made throughout this debate to the tradition in the Jewish community of support for human rights. I hope that I have said enough to suggest that this tradition is not yet extinguished in the modern state of Israel.
Middle East
Lord Bew Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bew
My Lords, I should like first to thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for his masterly introduction to the theme of our debate. I should also declare an interest as chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association. However, I do not want to return to the narrow ground of the Israel-Palestine dispute in the course of my remarks today. In my brief period as a Member of your Lordships' House we have had seven general debates on this topic, while in the same period we have had only one on Latin America and one on China. I sometimes feel that the slightly exaggerated focus on this region—in view of its objective importance, important though it is—distorts our grasp of geopolitical realities elsewhere in the Middle East. I want to focus today on the latter. I should also like to respond particularly to the striking remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on Turkey. I am aware that, unfortunately, there have been very sharp exchanges between Turkey and Israel in recent days, but that is not my reason for focusing on Turkey now.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell, spoke warmly about the positive role that he sees Turkey playing in the region. I understand exactly the reasons why he has done so, and I fully respect all the points that he made in that context. I also noted in the fine speech of my noble friend Lord Luce his reference to the fact that Turkey could be a model for the region. I have no challenge to make to that argument. However, I want to add a little balance to the discussion.
As all noble Lords will be aware, since 2002 Turkey has had a significant change in its political culture and government. The Ataturk legacy, which was previously so dominant in the internal political culture of Turkey, has now, to put it mildly, been challenged very strongly. That legacy was a secular concept of Turkish nationality, underlining the basis for the Turkish state. In the period since 2002 outside commentators of widely differing views and perspectives have insisted that a greater degree of repression is falling in Turkey on the Kurds, on religious minorities, journalists, workers and students. It would not be right to forget these things in our discussion of where Turkey is going.
More particularly, and more precisely, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, did not mention a very important issue: Turkey’s attitude to EU membership. It is a crucial matter. I strongly support its membership as it would be entirely desirable. However, does the Minister share the view of many commentators of different perspectives from outside Turkey who believe that it is now on the back burner for the Turkish Government? Does he share the view that Turkey is no longer as concerned as it once was with this question, although it has not formally withdrawn its application, and that it is concerned above all with projecting its power and reputation in the Arab world? I am curious to know the Minister’s view on this matter.
In an earlier life, from 1972 to 1974, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was a very distinguished Minister of State in Northern Ireland. Those were very difficult times, a period in which almost 25 per cent of those killed in the Troubles actually died. He will be familiar with the problem of determining who is and who is not a moderate. You can have moderation and you can have bogus moderation and it is very difficult to find a dividing line. I fully accept that we have to engage where possible with political forces which we do not find enormously sympathetic at first sight, but it is none the less a difficult question.
The Minister will remember without having to stretch his memory too far that there was a common view in Ireland that maintained, “I personally forswear terrorism and the IRA. But, of course, you do understand that all the problems of Ireland are a product of the British Government or its local allies the Protestants”. This widespread view was a part of the rhetoric. There is now a not dissimilar form of rhetoric in the Middle East which maintains, “Of course I forswear al-Qaeda and its works and terrorism. But you do understand that the problems of the region are a function of the West and its local ally Israel”. I wonder what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, thinks about the impact of the Arab spring and whether it has strengthened or weakened that tendency of thought in the region.
Israel
Lord Bew Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bew
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for introducing the debate on this important subject. I start by declaring an interest as the incoming chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association and say that as someone who was a strong advocate in the early and mid-1990s of what became the Good Friday agreement solution in Northern Ireland, I am strongly committed to historic compromise as the means to overcome the tenacious problems of ethnic, religious and national political divides.
I want to concentrate on the issues surrounding the United States, the United Nations and our foreign policy in recent days. One point has to be made about the decision made by the American Administration in the lead-up to the recent United Nations vote: 110 congressmen wrote to the Administration to say, “Do not support this anti-Israel resolution”. In the end, the Administration compromised. Critical points were made about Israeli policy. I say wryly and not with overwhelming pleasure after 30 years experience of the Irish question that 110 congressmen is 109 more than you need to countermand any dialogue between our Foreign Office and the State Department. We must respect profound political realities for any United States Administration.
On the United Nations decision, one point made by the American ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, seems to me of some substance. She argued that, had the United States not vetoed the resolution, it would merely have hardened opinion on both sides. More profoundly, it is clearly the view of the United States that the United Nations—its resolutions and its theatre—is not the context for the resolution of the Middle Eastern problem. That is the message that the United States is sending to us. We may not like it, but we have been sent that message very firmly.
The problem is seen more profoundly as one of land for peace and of convincing enough Israelis, in the aftermath of the disappointment that many Israelis feel about the consequences of withdrawal from Gaza, in both the political class and the population at large, that land for peace is a gamble that they can take on. That is the fundamental problem. It is not helped by one-sided denunciations of Israel and the failure thus far in the debate to acknowledge the consequences for many Israelis and the disappointment felt because of one risk that was taken: the withdrawal from Gaza. That is the reality with which we are now faced in this context. The United Nations and its resolutions are, in a sense, background music.
European Council and North Africa
Lord Bew Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
I believe that we are no longer selling firearms or weapons of any kind to Egypt, but I would certainly have to double and treble check that in every aspect, because—who knows?—there may be some channels where that is not absolutely secure.
On the second part of the noble Lord’s question, I think that his words are a shade impetuous, if I may say so. We are watching a very rapidly changing pattern—a wind of change, as some have said, blowing through the whole of this area. None of us knows what will happen. Anyone who claimed that they knew exactly what would happen next or what pattern would be involved inside Egypt, Tunis and other areas, including Yemen, would be putting forward a false prospectus and making claims about which they could not be certain. There are doubts and debates in Washington policy circles; we can see that—it is perfectly obvious, as I have said to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. In the European Union countries there are the same concerns. We want to see a balanced democratic pattern emerge in these countries; we want to see prosperity, stability and an orderly transition. Who can lay down exactly what the path should be—which leaders should stay in authority, which should hold or surrender power or how it should be done? We pray and hope that it is done with minimum bloodshed and maximum concern for individual freedom and democracy and all the things that we value.
In the noble Lord’s first question, I think that he is referring to the much commented-on Franco-German competitiveness pact, which does not seem to be very widely supported by other EU members. Certainly, the idea of a single pattern of corporation tax or some of the other suggestions, such as harmonisation of detailed aspects of labour markets and wages, did not go down at all well at the European Council meeting.
Lord Bew
I thank the Minister for reading out the Statement. On the Libyan aspect of the Statement, I declare an interest as having been a member of the parliamentary delegation for Libyan and Northern Ireland reconciliation, led by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, who is in his place. One thing that emerges very clearly from the Cabinet Office report today is that the Libyan Ministers to whom we spoke knew more about recent UK policy on this matter than those of us who were on that delegation. As long as the noble Lord is a Minister in the Foreign Office, will he ensure that those who go as part of future parliamentary delegations to Libya know the full background of recent UK policy to the country that we are dealing with? Otherwise, one is at a disadvantage.
One interesting thing raised by the Cabinet Secretary at the beginning of the document is the issue about anticipating American reaction. This is quite a remarkable thing; after all, it was not hard to calculate that the United States’ reaction to the release of Mr Megrahi would be hostile. There is an argument, as the Prime Minister explicitly stated, that the last Government got it wrong, but at the heart of the report we read that our embassy in Washington said that there would be a hostile US reaction. In the same part of the report, there is also a suggestion that perhaps the State Department was not making its position fully clear. Can the Minister throw some light on an absolutely remarkable piece of British history—a failure to calculate something that was so predictable, which was the United States’ reaction to this release? The evidence in the report seems conflicted to some degree. It is such a striking thing that I wonder whether the Minister has any comment on it.
Lord Howell of Guildford
To be brief, because time is out, of course I will ensure that my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office make every effort, as they always do, to provide the best possible up-to-date briefing. Sometimes matters are moving so fast that it is hard to be absolutely up to date and sometimes when one is on a delegation in another country—and I have led many in the past, as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place—one finds the local view and perspective seemingly different, even with a conflict of facts. We will do our best.
As to the US reaction to the release of Mr Megrahi, I think that it was generally realised that this would be greeted with great concern by the United States; everyone was fully aware of that. Many people thought, probably not just as a result of that, but for other reasons, too, that it was wrong to release Megrahi—those many included my right honourable friend the Prime Minister—but we have our own views in this country. I am not saying that in this case the decision was right—I think that it was wrong—but we are entitled to develop our own world perspective and our own views on how the new landscape is changing, as well as to remain very close to our allies and friends in Washington while being in a relationship that, to quote my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, is “solid but not slavish”.
Foreign Policy
Lord Bew Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bew
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for securing this debate. There is now no doubt that the coincidence of the debate with the Foreign Secretary’s speech has enlivened our discussions and given them a greater and sharper focus, so I also congratulate him on his good luck in his timing.
We have already heard from noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Desai, about the economic transformations that the world is witnessing. It is quite clear to me that the Foreign Secretary’s speech, which I broadly welcome, is actually a cold and fairly realistic response to those transformations in part. Because we have talked so much about economic changes, I hope I can say one word about politics. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, in his maiden speech, talked about the special relationship. It may, or may not, be the case that it is a sentimental illusion to which we have been prone—I make no comment. However, it is the case at this moment that the policy of the United States Government is a new type of foreign policy defined by a rejection of the concept of American exceptionalism and its role in the world. It may be that that will not be acceptable to mainstream American opinion over the next two years but, at the moment, that is the policy, and we have to take account of it because it has crucial implications for our foreign policy. One of the things about the Foreign Secretary’s speech is that there is a tone of realism running through it. If there ever was a sentimental allusion, I do not see much sign of it in today’s speech.
We must bear in mind that in the 1990s it was not absurd to talk about the 21st century as the American century. At this point, it may have been wrong, but one can see why at that moment serious people might have seen it in that way. At the end of the first decade of this century, it is very hard to see it in that way. The underlying principle of the Foreign Secretary’s speech is a recognition of the new world in which we now live with its various transitions and changes.
I shall focus on an important theme that was not mentioned in the Foreign Secretary’s speech this morning: our relations with Libya. On 12 October 2009, the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock of Holyhead, repeated a Statement in your Lordships' House entitled “Libya”. The Statement came in the aftermath of the controversial release by the Scottish Justice Minister of Mr Megrahi, who had been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli, much to the dismay of the United Kingdom Government. In the course of a wide-ranging assessment and analysis of our relations with Libya, the noble Baroness stated,
“in respect of the campaign … to secure compensation from Libya in respect of its past support for the Provisional IRA, we have created a dedicated unit in the FCO to facilitate the families' renewed campaign”.—[Official Report, 12/10/09; col. 39.]
The noble Baroness mentioned the possibility of a parliamentary visit to Libya and at the beginning of November, I took part in such a parliamentary delegation to Tripoli. I have to say that I am most grateful to our officials and Ambassador in Libya. I make the point that has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay: it is vital that our Foreign Office is able to continue to provide its professionalism in such important cities as Tripoli. It would be an astonishing act of national absurdity for us to do anything to weaken the way in which our Foreign Office works in such important places. We had a series of discussions over two days with Libyan Ministers and officials. They were very interesting, engaging, urbane, sophisticated, useful and helpful. On our return, the Foreign Office issued a statement. However, at this point, it is worth asking the new Government where they stand on the pursuit of this aspect of our relationship with Libya. Will there still be a dedicated unit in the Foreign Office dealing with this question? More generally, where do we now stand in our relations with Libya? This is an enormously complicated question in terms of the transitions within Libyan politics, our relationship with the United States and United States policy in the region. None the less, returning to the original remarks by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, when we think of Libya, are we in the world where we think of hazards or in the world of opportunities?