Foreign Affairs
Lord Farmer Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I will speak today about our Government’s response to global Christian persecution. In 2019 the Bishop of Truro, now the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and a Member of this House, highlighted in his review the near abandonment of the world’s most persecuted religion by western powers. By the UN’s definition, levels of persecution of Christians around the globe were close to genocidal. Their extinction was imminent in the Middle East. In Iraq, the number of Christians is now 10% of what it was 20 years ago.
Christian persecution is now even worse and still the worst of any religion in the world. One in seven Christians—365 million—face high to extreme levels of persecution for their faith and 80% of all acts of religious persecution are against Christians, which is a staggering proportion. Nearly 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith last year, compared with nearly 3,000 in 2019 when the Truro review was published, and twice as many Christians were forced to flee their homes in 2023 as in 2022.
Any concerted effort to secure freedom of religion or belief barely scratches the surface if Christians are ignored. This is not just because of these numbers. As the Truro review states, the persecution of Christians is “a bellwether for repression” more generally.
I need to mention two major areas. The first is northern Africa, including Nigeria—the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in her very eloquent speech, described what is happening there—and the Sahel. The second is the Indian subcontinent, where Christians are routinely targeted, terrorised and killed in countries which aspire to be, or already are, major trading partners with the UK. Nigeria is the sixth-worst country to live in as a Christian. More Christians are killed there for their faith than in all other countries combined. Armed groups, such as Boko Haram or Islamic State West Africa Province, burn churches and target Christians for rape, murder and kidnap.
Terrorism cannot be solely blamed. Deborah Yakubu was murdered in 2022 after expressing concerns in a college WhatsApp group about discrimination against Christian students. She was stoned, beaten and then burnt on a pile of tyres by a mob. Yet the UK signed a £7 billion trade partnership with Nigeria a matter of weeks ago. I ask my noble friend the Foreign Secretary if such abuses were raised at any point in negotiations.
On the Indian subcontinent, persecution against Christians is rising fast. Speaking about one’s faith is hazardous in most of India, where Christians can be arrested and subjected to physical violence on false charges of forced conversions. Acid attacks, so-called honour killings, mob beatings and executions happen regularly, as do arson attacks on churches. Again, can my noble friend confirm that this Government will use the lever of trade to improve rights to religious freedom?
The Foreign Office’s own assessment in 2022 found that many Truro review recommendations had not been implemented. It cited failure to create both an “early warning mechanism” for religious persecution and a data-gathering system of religious freedom abuses. There was still no name or term for Christian persecution and no meaningful culture shift in the Foreign Office to take it seriously. More positively on the FCDO scorecard, its November 2023 White Paper on UK aid referred to for the first time, and prioritises, persecution on grounds of religion or belief as a driver of poverty. I commend my right honourable friend Andrew Mitchell, the Minister who listened to FoRB concerns and included this.
Additionally, the Prime Minister now has a highly effective envoy for freedom of religion or belief, my honourable friend Fiona Bruce. Her important role should be established in statute. Will the Government support the Bill to secure its continuity? It acts as an important counterweight when considering with whom we trade. I understand the pressure that the Government are under to bow down to the god of bilateral trade agreements while sacrificing the weak and vulnerable and our own British values. But where did these values come from? The historian Tom Holland says in Dominion:
“So profound has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilisation that it has come to be hidden from view”.
Without Christianity, where would there be tolerance, respect for others’ views and the impulse to move beyond narrow personal, or indeed national, self-interest?
United Nations Population Fund Report
Lord Farmer Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
On one level I am inclined to agree with the noble Lord but there are so many important themes that the Foreign Office has prioritised in our integrated review and our IDS—there is permanent tension between competing causes. It is a priority for the Government—that has been made crystal clear in all the key documents that have been produced in the last couple of years that set the direction of our funding for the next decade—but it is not the only priority.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the report we are discussing says much about rights and choices but nothing about parenting capacity and skills. What are the Government doing, particularly in the education system, to inform our young people about the responsibilities and realities of parenthood, which are hugely demanding, regardless of income levels?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
This is another important point. I assume that the noble Lord is talking about what we are doing here in the UK. I am straying a bit but to prepare children for life in modern Britain pupils need to understand the world in which they are growing up. We want to support all young people to lead happy, healthy and safe lives and to foster respect for other people and for differences. That is why we made the new subjects of relationships education for primary schools and relationships and sex education for secondary schools and health education for all pupils in state-funded schools compulsory as of September 2020.
Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Lord Farmer Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, is getting up and walking out, but I want to pick up on a point that he made in his speech earlier on, which struck a note with me. It was the point about constitutional monarchy, as we have heard from time to time during the speeches today, and how apt this place in particular is to make tributes to Her Majesty. This place, the House of Lords, is where Her Majesty sits on the Throne at the State Opening and calls in the Commons so that they can hear the Queen’s Speech. Here is the place where the constitutional monarchy is on display at its most effective, if you like, at the beginning of every parliamentary year. It struck me very much what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, and it is certainly, for me, an honour and a privilege to be able to stand here and say what a wonderful Queen we have had.
I want to start at the end, in a way, where many other Peers have started, with the photo, this week, leaning forwards and slightly stooped to shake the other Liz’s hand: a little old lady in a cardigan. The new Prime Minister’s dark suit was the epitome of power dressing and her height was accentuated in the foreground of the shot. Yet, despite the optics—and without any disrespect to our Prime Minister—I think, when we looked at the picture, we all knew where the real power lay in that handshake. I actually passed the photograph around our office and said, “Where is the real power?” And it was obvious.
Soft power, which we have heard about today, was a phrase that could have been coined for the Queen—the ability to co-opt rather than coerce. She would say herself that it came primarily not from her constitutional position but from her utter dependence on God, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, who so clearly worked through her. Interestingly, I hear that President Biden has today ordered all American flags worldwide to be flown at half-mast until after the funeral. What a display of power—for one British individual to have the American flag flying at half-mast for such a length of time.
The Queen was a unique expression of God’s grace. In the final words of her last Christmas message, she described Jesus as
“a man whose teachings have been handed down from generation to generation, and have been the bedrock of my faith.”
Throughout her reign, in her Christmas messages in particular, she referred to him as her rock. In his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul lists the fruit of the Holy Spirit—a list of the essence of the character of God—as love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, patience, faithfulness and self-control.
Let us think of those words. We have mentioned love today: love for her family, the people she served and the nation. We have heard anecdotes in every single speech in which she was so thoughtful and caring to those around her. As for joy, we have heard about her sense of humour—its infectiousness, her smile and her zest for life. As for peace, we have heard also of her work, her shaking that hand in Ireland. We have heard about the peaceful overtures we have seen her make publicly in her family difficulties.
Then we have the kindness, goodness and gentleness that pervaded her. I will come back to faithfulness. As for patience and self-control, I often remember sitting in the middle of these Benches at State Opening, when the Table was removed. We were all waiting patiently; the Queen had come in and was sitting on the Throne as Black Rod had gone down to bang on the door. We were all looking at the Queen, as she looked over our heads down the Corridor, and you could hear shambling, laughing and casual chatting slowly ambling up towards us. As I looked at her, I thought “There is patience but also self-control.” There was a steeliness in her eyes which I think she was controlling.
With all humility, coming back to faithfulness, I have made a recommendation that she should have the designation “Elizabeth the Faithful”. We have had Kings in the past, and there have been many Kings of other countries, who have had an adjective following their name to define them. This would be an epigram of her constancy, faithfulness and outworked sense of duty to God and man since she made those promises when she was so young, to make the uniqueness of her reign stand out in the sweep of history to come for future generations and in future centuries.
Coming back to the present, I mentioned Biden earlier. Apparently Vladimir Putin has acknowledged:
“For many decades Elizabeth II rightfully enjoyed her subjects’ love and respect as well as authority on the world stage.”
Even those who rule in a contrary spirit recognise and respect the miracle that she was to us. Light has a habit of overcoming darkness. She is a miracle of the modern age.
I should like to finish by talking about prayer. Noble Lords pray here at the start of every day. You could say we pray by rote, but we pray for our monarch—that God will direct and bless them, and give them wisdom, happiness and health. One must not forget all the congregations and church assemblies, in the villages and towns, that pray for the monarch. In all sorts of gatherings there are people praying for the monarch.
I say to all who have been praying over the years that your prayers have been answered. Do believe in the power of prayer; it is heard and it does work. Look at the Queen’s life, which I have just described as a miracle. Where can the strength have come from to do what she did?
I finish with the encouragement to carry on praying and to pray that our new King has a long and glorious life of service. As I say without any doubt, God hears and answers these prayers. We all know it would please her for us to say that we will now lift up those prayers for our gracious monarch King Charles III. May he be blessed bountifully in his reign. We will continue to be faithful in doing that.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute as Her Majesty’s hereditary banner-bearer for Scotland. Along with your Lordships, I send condolences to the Royal Family.
As has been said, the Queen’s passing yesterday is already noted everywhere to have caused shock, uncertainty and even fear. Yet the corollary of that is the healing strength of what she achieved.
Whether here in the United Kingdom, in the Commonwealth or elsewhere abroad, there are her priorities for how things should be.
These may perhaps be summarised by her comments in London in 1969, at the 20th anniversary of Europe’s human rights institution, of which the United Kingdom remains a key member:
“The Council of Europe provides us with a means to dismantle the barriers to communication, understanding and common effort between the European peoples. For the sake of future generations and for the peace and prosperity of our continent, we should grasp this opportunity with both hands.”
The Queen’s humour, warm personality, astuteness and concern for others are well known across the world. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred to her corgis and love of animals—an attribute shared with St Francis. Certainly at all times, her wishes were to encourage the prescriptions of harmony within the famous prayer of St Francis.
I join your Lordships in recognising the enormous benefits that her long reign brought to all of us, both nationally and internationally, with huge thanks; and with appreciation for her remarkable legacy that will endure.
Child Poverty Strategy
Lord Farmer Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The case study the noble Baroness relays is definitely harrowing, and I wonder whether I might meet with her to talk more about it and to understand it in more detail. However, the Government are absolutely committed to dealing with the issues of poverty. We have just allocated another £15 billion support package. This will include a £650 payment to more than 8 million low-income households and a £300 increase to the winter fuel payment. Individuals receiving disability benefit will receive £150 as a one-off payment in September, and this will not be taken into account for tax purposes on benefits. We have cut the taper rate, and we have also given a non-repayable £400 reduction in energy bills. Those in houses in council tax bands A to D will get £150, and for other people who do not get that there is a further £144 million. We understand the issues of poverty, and we are placing vast sums of money to do what we can to help.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, during the passage of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, my noble friend Lord Freud said that focusing on income-based poverty measures fails
“to tackle the root causes of child poverty.”—[Official Report, 25/1/16; col. 1054.]
He promised regular reports on family instability, inter alia, to hold the Government to account for their actions and progress. The Government have not yet fulfilled that promise. Can my noble friend assure me that they recognise that family instability is a driver of poverty and are concerned not just about parental conflict?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I completely agree with my noble friend about family instability and how it drives poverty. That is why we are investing so much in family hubs, and I pay tribute to my noble friend for the activity he has had with those. I am meeting the Minister responsible for family hubs next week to see how the rollout is going and how the DWP might work with them. But I have to say that through the reducing parental conflict programme, in which we will invest £33 million, we have supported over 4,400 parents since 2019. We are confident that we have gleaned sufficient data from this to continue to roll out the programme and to ensure that we support people with difficult relationships.
International Women’s Day and Protecting the Equality of Women in the UK and Internationally
Lord Farmer Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, and his sobering report on the plight of women and children in Kashmir, of which I was certainly not aware. To mark International Women’s Day, I wish to step back and look at the gifts and qualities that women bring to the whole of human life, which are often unrecognised and undervalued. If they were more valued and recognised, they would certainly help in furthering and protecting women’s equality in the UK and globally.
As American comedian Rhonda Hansome says:
“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t.”
The most obvious thing is that women bear and give birth to the next generation. We ignore the qualities that women bring to their roles as homemakers and child-rearers at our peril. Of course, they do so much more than that, and men often now take a home-front role, but women are almost always the central hub figures in families.
This is not just gender stereotyping. Research has found that it is much more common for a woman than a man to know her children’s friends, hopes, dreams, romances and secret fears, and to know what they are thinking, how they are feeling and when their doctors’ appointments are. Although there is infinite variability within the two sexes, there are clear sex-based differences in tendencies flowing from how male and female brains tend to be wired and their respective physiology, hence the Government bringing forward a women’s health strategy—and, I hope, a men’s strategy, following the report from the APPG for men and boys, of which I am a vice-chair.
Differences are wired into us at the deepest level. For instance, in terms of hearing, women’s discomfort level is half that of men. On smell, women are relatively sensitive and men relatively insensitive. On touch, the most sensitive man is less sensitive to touch than the least sensitive woman. On people orientation, baby girls exhibit twice as much eye contact as baby boys by the age of three.
Flowing from all this, the leadership literature is clear as to the many strengths of what has broadly been termed a “female leadership” style. I caveat again that I refer throughout to tendencies, including prosocial behaviour, women’s more marked relationship orientation, stronger social competence and the panoramic view that they bring to decisions. They accept ambiguity more readily, are more inherently flexible and honour intuition as well as pure rationality. That is something I have always wondered at; it is extraordinary to see how correct female intuition is. Women more commonly try to take everything and everyone into consideration, and their strong social competence allows them to collect information from all sides and consider all perspectives of a situation. It can also give them titanic powers of persuasion, which I say ruefully from experience.
Many sectors of the 21st-century economic community urgently need the natural talents of women: a capacity to read non-verbal cues; emotional sensitivity; empathy; greater patience; an ability to do and think several things simultaneously; a penchant for long-term planning; and a preference for co-operating and reaching consensus. Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan’s classic study found that women want to connect. While men are self-oriented, women are other-oriented; men are rights-oriented and women are responsibility-oriented. Men have an individual perspective where the core unit is “me”; women have a group perspective where the core unit is “we”. Men take pride in self-reliance; women take pride in team accomplishment and focus naturally on empowerment rather than power.
The business guru Tom Peters describes how we have not advanced much since the days in the cave. As a hunter, a man needed vision that would allow him to zero in on targets in the distance, whereas a woman needed eyes to allow a wide arc of vision so that she could monitor predators sneaking up to the nest. That is why, he says, modern men can find their way effortlessly to a distant pub but can never find things in fridges, cupboards and drawers. Women guarded and defended the cave community while the men went out hunting. Men are either switched all the way on or, when in a resting state, only 30% on. Women are never turned off; they are on guard 24/7 and their resting state is 90% on. Men are tuned in or out, seldom in between— I think the Committee gets the picture.
That is why, on International Women’s Day, we have to and should celebrate women. We cannot avoid defining who women are or allow them to be stealthily redefined. As we know, women have recently been called “cervix havers”, “menstruators”, “birthing bodies” and, perhaps most distastefully, “bleeders”. Reducing women to their bodily functions is dehumanising and disgusting.
Returning to the definition of “woman”, the dictionary is clear that a woman is an adult human female. The Equality Act 2010 is also clear: Section 212 states that
“‘woman’ means a female of any age.”
This word needs to be politically detoxified so that politicians no longer quake when asked to define it. The most high-profile recent examples of this happen to have come from the Labour Party’s ranks, but politicians across the spectrum are terrified of getting on the wrong side of what is just the latest incarnation of a misogynist orthodoxy. There is nothing new under the sun. Without being able to use the word “woman” and understand what we mean by it, women’s needs can be obscured and even ignored, but those needs are shared by 51% of the electorate.
It came to this because powerful lobby groups and powerful men insist that anyone can be a woman. I am not a scientist but I know that humans simply cannot change their sex. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, who is a scientist and a professor, categorically said this on the BBC’s “Question Time”:
“You cannot change your sex. Your sex actually is there in every single cell in the body.”
We can change our bodies with hormones and, in some cases, surgery to resemble the opposite sex more closely, but we should not minimise or soft-pedal how difficult this is in practice, and how arduous and costly will be the need for ongoing medical intervention. Unsurprisingly, therefore, fewer than 3% of those who identify as transgender women have undergone such modifications, but many who are naturally sympathetic to trans women—and, of course, trans men—are unaware that the vast majority are still bodily intact.
Yet when a female rape victim asks for a woman to examine her, she needs to be sure that her request will be respected, as does one’s elderly mother who requests that only female carers provide her with intimate and personal care. Women in these and similar situations who have objected when confronted with a bodily intact man who identifies as a woman have been called bigots and transphobes. Women’s prisons can, and do, contain male-bodied rapists. Newspapers talk about “her erect penis” when describing sexual assault. Female prisoners can be punished for misgendering the natal, intact males in their prison. In sport, women and girls are being beaten, sometimes even injured, by bigger, faster and stronger males in their own sports—women’s sports.
Extreme ideologies are breaking down the social norms, the social contract between males and females where we make room for each other’s needs and respect the sex-based differences that I have described. One recognised weakness of women leaders’ pro-social engagement and willingness to see everyone’s point of view is their abandonment of their own interests. Their tendency to want to share success can mean that they doubt their own competence. Women quite simply do not always feel able to stand up for themselves. When I have argued for women’s rights to single-sex spaces in hospitals and prisons, I have been surprised to receive many gentle cards of thanks from those who sign off simply as mothers and ordinary women. The ones who tend to empower others often feel very disempowered in this debate.
Returning to the need to celebrate women, we cannot do that without an agreed definition and freedom to speak the truth respectfully but without fear of being cancelled, pilloried or criminalised. There was global condemnation when Russia meted out that treatment to the courageous Russian female journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova. She did not just hold up a sign—she is a sign and, in my contribution today, she has the final word.
DWP: Support for Larger Families
Lord Farmer Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
We do seem to be sharing today, do we not? The noble Lord’s serious point is that unless we deal with things before they become a problem, we bank up problems for the future. That is why early intervention is critical, and why we are working with the Early Intervention Foundation on reducing parental conflicts so that young children can have a better start in life, and the family hubs network is coming in. However, I understand the noble Lord’s point and it is well made.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the benefit cap level appears the same whether a couple or a single parent heads a household, yet two adults cost more than one. While there are more opportunities to avoid the cap by working if there are two adults, given strong evidence for the health and societal benefits of stable two-parent family structures, what measures are in place to ensure that the benefit cap does not create a couple penalty and discriminate against couple families and children?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My noble friend again makes a very good point. We understand that where children grow up with parents and healthy support, they do much better and they thrive. But the Government firmly believe that, where possible, it is in the best interests of children to be in working households, and the benefit cap provides a clear incentive to work. Household earnings of only £617 a month provide an exemption from the cap, and exemptions apply for the most vulnerable claimants who are receiving disability benefits or are entitled to carer benefits.
Benefit Cap: Review
Lord Farmer Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am well aware of the observations passed by my noble friend Lord Freud. As I have said, the benefit cap will be reviewed by the Secretary of State. I am very sorry, but I am not able to give a commitment to scrap it.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister tell us what proportion of those subject to the benefit cap are realistically incapable of moving into work? Perhaps they are sole carers of very young or disabled children, or dependent adults, or they might be recovering from addictions. With such cases in mind, will the Minister update us on progress in developing universal support?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I will deal with the latter point first. The Government are fundamentally against universal support or universal basic income: it is the wrong approach for the people of the UK. It would mean that there was no incentive to work; it would not target those in greatest need, and it would fail to take into account the significant additional costs faced by many individuals. As for the people mentioned by my noble friend, it would be easy to write them off, but our absolute commitment is to say that the best route out of poverty—the best route for these people—is, where they can, to get work.
I was passed today just one story about a single father from Scotland who lives remotely, 25 miles from his nearest Jobcentre Plus, for whom finding work was almost impossible. However, his work coach found him a Kickstart job: they absolutely threw the kitchen sink at the flexible support fund and got him advance costs to enable him to travel. He is now working on the Kickstart scheme, which is proving to be very good for him.
Child Poverty: Nuffield Foundation Review
Lord Farmer Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very valid point. Without trying to sideline the issue, I will go to my colleagues in the department for housing—forgive me for not knowing what it is called now; the levelling-up bastion, perhaps—and make sure that the noble Lord gets an accurate answer to that question.
Lord Farmer (Con)
The Nuffield review outlined six elements for tackling early childhood poverty. Notably, these include, first, a multidimensional approach to multiple socioeconomic risks and the needs of families with young children, and, secondly, support for parental mental health and parenting from day one of a child’s life. What progress are the Government making in ensuring that all families have access to a welcome family hub as part of their cross-departmental best start for life policy?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Nothing would make my heart sing more than everybody having access to a family hub. At the moment, there is £34 million for those hubs. We are doing great work with them. I have decided, because I thought that family hubs would come up today, to do an all-Peers briefing on them so that noble Lords can hear exactly what we are doing and ask all the questions they wish.
Nigeria: Religious Violence
Lord Farmer Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, first, I fully align myself with the remarks of the most reverend Primate and pay tribute to him for his tireless efforts on conflict resolution, not just in Nigeria but around the world. As he knows from our discussions, I share many of the views that he has articulated. On his specific questions, we are developing a new conflict, security and justice programme, which aims to reduce levels of violence through the development of more effective conflict-management systems, working in conjunction with key partners on the ground. On the issue of British nationals, apart from the focus on conflict management, we continue to update travel advice to inform British nationals intending to travel to Nigeria, providing, in particular, specific travel advice for different states within Nigeria.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the Government continue to downplay the scale of the suffering endured by Christians in central belt states. Ministers refer to attacks by Fulani herders as
“a consequence of population growth”.—[Official Report, 11/7/19; col. 1958.]
They have also referred to them as a consequence of “land and water disputes”. This does not reflect the reality on the ground, identified by local observers as a campaign of ethno-religious cleansing. Will the Minister ensure that the Government revisit the characterisation of this violence to acknowledge the significance of the perpetrators’ ferocious ideology?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
First, I assure my noble friend that, as he will know, the Government fully endorsed an inquiry into Christian persecution, and we are carrying out every single recommendation that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister agreed. We will continue to work with the Bishop of Truro, who oversaw that particular inquiry. I share his concern that, yes, any conflict in Nigeria is exploited. Unfortunately, as I said in my original Answer, it is exploited by those divisive voices who erroneously use religion to divide people, and we will continue to condemn all acts of violence, particularly those against Christians and other communities in Nigeria and, indeed, elsewhere.