Human Rights Violations: Consular Assistance

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I was just looking at the eligibility criteria and it is quite clear that we offer this service to British nationals overseas. They establish their rights through establishing evidence of their citizenship. I am not sure what further steps we might need to take. The important thing is that people who are resident abroad can rest assured that our consular services will be available to them.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, in 2019, the Media Freedom Coalition was created by the United Kingdom. It now involves 51 countries. It has a high-level legal panel, which I currently chair, following in the footsteps of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger. The coalition was very clear in its report on consular services that those services should be available to those who are at risk. That is particularly the case for journalists, who are often harassed. The murder of journalists has become a serious epidemic globally because of authoritarianism and wanting to get rid of critics, as has the murder of other human rights activists. Are we taking steps to provide visas for those at risk who need to get out? Sometimes they have family members who need to travel with them. How good are we at providing consular services.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I start by congratulating my noble friend on her appointment as chair of the high-level panel. As she knows, during the United Nations General Assembly, she and I were at the same event, hosted by Canada, on media freedom. That was a coalition between Canada and the UK, undertaken by the previous Government, and we are committed to continuing that work. Our manifesto commitment is quite clear in terms of establishing a right for human rights violations. One of the things we discussed at the Canada meeting was how media freedom was a particular human right. So I will take her points and hopefully we can meet to discuss this further, because there needs to be input into the discussions we are having at departmental level.

Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

3rd reading
Friday 17th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like the opportunity, with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, to speak briefly to the purpose of this Bill and the stage we have now reached. Noble Lords will remember that the Bill came into being because of the horrifying global events we have all witnessed over recent years. The levels of violence and degradation are not new, but we thought that the experience of the Holocaust had taught the world lessons that might have enabled early intervention, possible diversion and maybe even prevention.

Genocides do not come from nowhere. They are invariably preceded by terrible atrocity crimes, and even before that there is a long trajectory. The whole point of this Bill is that, in retrospect, we should be responding to early displays of hostility, land grabs and the many different ways in which there are red flags as to trouble ahead. The Holocaust did not start with concentration camps. It started with evictions, sackings, trumped-up prosecutions, assaults by extremist thugs, humiliations and so on—for example, the whole business of cleaning streets with toothbrushes.

The events which led to this Bill were the horrors of what happened to the Yazidis under ISIS: the enslavement of so many women; the slaughtering of men and boys. Similar horrible atrocities happened to the Rohingya, with killings and rapes in Myanmar. There is also the case of the Uighurs in China. There are the horrors of what happened, and is still happening, in Sudan in Darfur. We hear, of course, the language of genocide being discussed by Ukrainians about their current experience, and in the Middle East by both sides who perceive existential threat.

The Bill is designed to strengthen a very small atrocity unit created 18 months ago in the Foreign Office. It consists of three people, working on identifying and working around atrocity crimes. We need to strengthen this work going forward, and that is the purpose of the Bill.

The Bill has five key elements. First, it establishes that we monitor closely, as the Elie Wiesel Act does in the United States of America, the red flags of potential genocides. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, promoted that. Secondly, it establishes that a Commons Minister will respond to genocide prevention issues, have that as part of their remit and be directly responsible and accountable in Parliament. Thirdly, it establishes training for people entering the Foreign Office—good, extensive training that will continue at different stages of people’s careers, particularly in respect of the hotspots where such things might happen. Fourthly, it establishes that that Minister will report regularly to Parliament. Fifthly, it establishes a small fund to assist particular victims. That would not deal with this issue to a large extent, but it would, for example, help some of the women who fled enslavement and were unable to return to their homes in northern Iraq to re-establish their lives elsewhere.

That is the nature of this Bill. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who met with me, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and another colleague. The Minister gave a very positive response to the Bill. It is very important in the next months and years that we have a much more effective team working on this, specifically within the Foreign Office. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the comments of my noble friend and thank everyone who has engaged on this. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said at Second Reading that many elements of the Bill were commendable and aligned with the Government’s own activities. I hope that, following the meeting my noble friend had with others, the noble Lord will also meet with me to look at how we can progress these things strongly. I welcome the comments and what the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, has said.