EU: Prime Minister’s Speech
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, I suggest that the Prime Minister's speech is a curate's egg—some good some bad. I include among the bad elements, the commitment to a referendum on a fixed timetable many years ahead on what may well turn out to be a false premise; namely, that wholesale treaty reform will be called for by others in a federating sense. That is not likely. They are more likely to go for rather modest changes to meet the requirements of the eurozone, so I regard that as unwise.
In one speech, the Prime Minister created a whole string of known unknowns. He should not have been playing Russian roulette with major national assets such as membership. I entirely see what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—I welcome her initiative in choosing this debate—said was not the end of the world. But nothing done by politicians has ever been the end of the world, yet. That does not mean that they have not done some damn stupid things.
It was wise of the Prime Minister not to choose a long laundry list of things that he wanted changed. Much more careful thought is needed as to how to approach this. I suggest three criteria are needed to be applied to any such changes. The first is: are the changes necessary for Britain's national interest and are they, at the same time, good for the EU as a whole? If the second condition cannot be met, they will not be agreed. The second criterion is: are they negotiable? The third is: do they match the Prime Minister's laudable objective of Britain staying in the European Union and influencing EU policy? The proposals published by the Fresh Start Group, which I would rather characterise as the false start group, would not fulfil any of those criteria.
However, we do need a positive agenda and we need that now. We do not need it in 2015 or 2016. We should be pursuing that now and be prepared to go outside the normal British comfort zone of single market completion, enlargement and freer world trade, although those are excellent things that we should be pursuing. But why are we not thinking more actively and intelligently about defence? The effect of austerity on defence budgets is surely pushing us all closer together.
My final word in the brief time that we have been allotted in this debate is; tactically astute, strategically reckless.
Nuclear Disarmament
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, the topicality of the subject we are debating today can surely not be doubted. The re-election for a second term of President Obama, who so electrified a global audience with the vision he set out in his Prague speech of a world eventually free of nuclear weapons, together with the changes in the top leadership of three of the other four officially recognised nuclear weapons states—China, France and Russia—present an opportunity as well as a challenge to those who wish for progress along the road towards multilateral nuclear disarmament.
However, we need to recognise that the landscape of 2012 was pretty bleak. There, I entirely share the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. The euphoria provoked by the Prague speech and the new START agreement between Russia and the US faded. Neither NATO nor Russia made any meaningful progress towards reducing and eventually removing tactical nuclear weapons from the front line in Europe. The failure at the end of the year to implement the agreement to convoke a conference on a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East has merely stored up problems for the future. We are entering a new and extremely dangerous phase in the efforts to handle the attempts by North Korea and Iran to break out from their obligations under the non-proliferation regime.
There are lots more causes for alarm and concern than there are for complacency, which makes the initiative of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham in obtaining this debate—I shared a little in the effort to get that agreed by our fellow Cross-Benchers— the more laudable. I also take this opportunity to thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, for his contribution to this debate and to so many other debates in this House.
As has invariably been the case so far, any further moves towards multilateral nuclear disarmament have to begin with the United States and Russia, whose arsenals still far exceed those of all other nuclear weapons states—both recognised and unrecognised—put together, and which also still far exceed any conceivable requirements to ensure their security.
The initial auguries are not good. The Russians, in particular, show little appetite for further reductions. Much, I feel, will depend on the first meetings—let us say, the next meetings—between Presidents Obama and Putin and whether they can find a way out of the impasse on ballistic missile defence, where the Russian position has often appeared to be as intransigent as it is unconvincing; but where President Obama was rather hamstrung on handling this matter in the period leading up to his re-election.
If those US-Russian difficulties can be overcome, the stage will have been set for a widening of the multilateral effort to include the other weapons states, including us. It is surely, therefore, high time now to prepare for that stage. In that context, the now regular series of meetings between the five recognised weapons states will surely need to assume a more operational significance and scope. I hope that the Minister can say something about the Government’s plans and aspirations in respect of the next P5 meeting. Surely the P5 offers the ideal forum in which to discuss the content of a fissile material cut-off treaty, which all five of those present have publicly supported. The P5 could also seek ways to get around the deadlock in the conference on disarmament over even starting negotiations on such a treaty, for which Pakistan alone is responsible.
The postponement of the Middle East conference on a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone may have been understandable, but simply to drift towards the next Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in 2015 without holding such a Middle East conference is surely a thoroughly bad option, likely to please only those who covertly wish to see collapse of the NPT regime. Since such a collapse is very much contrary to our own national security interests, I hope that the Minister will be able to say how we, as one of the joint conveners of that middle eastern conference, are planning to proceed from now onwards.
The greatest immediate challenges in the nuclear field lie, of course, in the handling of the cases of Iran and North Korea. Neither presents any particular cause for optimism. The negative consequences of taking pre-emptive military action against either country still seem far to outweigh any conceivable benefits, whatever one’s view of the morality or international legitimacy of so doing. That points to major efforts being required to revive the search for diplomatic solutions, which will also require some willingness to compromise on both sides of the very tense relationships over those two countries. In the case of North Korea, the search for compromise would seem to require some meeting of minds between China and the United States. In the case of Iran, it seems that what is lacking is some direct channel of communication between the Iranian leadership and the US Administration. Do the Government share that analysis and, if they do, are they conveying those thoughts to those most directly concerned?
I wish I felt that the handling of these vital issues of nuclear policy came a little higher up the Government’s foreign policy agenda than they seem to do. When, for example, did the Prime Minister last address them in a major speech? I think the answer is that he has not ever done so. When did the Foreign Secretary last address them in a major speech? I think the answer is: when the Government published their Nuclear Posture Review in the summer of 2010. It surely is high time that that gap was filled.
It is of course quite correct to underline the fact that Britain has the smallest arsenal among the nuclear weapons states, but that is not an excuse for inertia. What thought are we giving not just to the size and configuration of our nuclear deterrent, but to its alert posture in the very different international circumstances from those for which it was originally designed? Here I join with all those in this debate who have questioned the validity of the “continuous at sea deterrence” doctrine, which so far has governed our nuclear policy. I, too, was dismayed when I saw the Government’s reply to the Written Question from the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, about the Trident review that is being undertaken and their intention not to publish any part of it. I was therefore delighted to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, drawing my attention to the fact that in the coalition’s mid-term agreement it seems to have moved on from that. I hope that the Minister will be able to make that very clear in her reply.
I have to say that for people like myself who support a continuing British nuclear deterrent, although not necessarily of the same nature and scope as the existing one, it is very disheartening if we are told that we are not grown-up enough to have a serious debate about this and to see what underpins the Government’s decision-making on it. Of course I understand that aspects of that will not be suitable for publication, but that is not to say that the broad strategic considerations cannot be set out on the table and debated among us without words such as “unilateralist” being flung around.
Finally, because this has been mentioned by several other noble Lords, I would like to say a word about the false argument that Britain’s permanent membership of the Security Council of the UN somehow depends crucially on our possession of nuclear weapons. That is simply not the case; it is totally unhistorical to suggest that it is. When the five permanent members of the Security Council were established under the UN charter, only one had nuclear weapons. China, the last of them to join, did not have them for another three decades. The link is really not there. The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, put his finger on it when he said that the sustaining of our permanent membership depends infinitely more on the role that we play in peacemaking, peacekeeping and conflict prevention, and matters such as that, than it does on making this false linkage with nuclear weapons. As I have said, I am not a unilateral disarmer. I am not suggesting that we should give up our nuclear weapons, but is important that we keep them for the right reasons and not for the wrong ones.
European Union: Recent Developments
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, 2012 has not been a good year for the European Union and it has not been a good year either for Britain in Europe. To deny either of those two pretty evident propositions is to delude oneself and to make the search for remedies even more difficult than it already is. The members of the eurozone have remained locked in an existential crisis from which they have yet to find a safe way forward. Even if they have made some progress and have managed to avoid some of the traps into which they might have fallen—most obviously the contagion that would almost certainly have followed a Greek exit from the euro—this crisis has diverted the energy and the attention of leaders away from a whole range of other challenges, such as completing the single market, continuing to give a firm lead on climate change and facing up to the difficult foreign policy choices in places such as Syria and over Palestine, for example. At the same time, Britain has slipped into its own, quite separate, existential crisis over its membership.
The coincidence of these two existential crises is in itself a negative factor, characterised by a sharp reduction in the sense of mutual solidarity that is needed if neither is to end in disaster. Even when a piece of good news comes along—such as the award to the European Union of the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its major contribution to peace and prosperity in the period after the Second World War, by anchoring the former dictatorships in southern Europe and the countries of central and eastern Europe, liberated from Soviet domination, to democracy and market economies, and by stabilising the Balkans after the tragic experiences of the 1990s—that good news is rapidly discounted or, in this country, derided by those whose narrative it simply does not fit. The Prime Minister’s absence from the Nobel awards ceremony in Oslo left me feeling ashamed. How petty we have become.
What are the main choices for this country and the European Union for the period ahead? I suggest three main lines of policy. First, we should continue to be supportive of the eurozone countries as they struggle to shape a more integrated economic policy structure within which to secure the future of the euro. Their success is as much in our interest as it is in theirs. Anyone who believes that the single market could survive unscathed a break-up of the eurozone is not awfully good at risk assessment. So we should eschew any further completely unnecessary and counterproductive confrontations, such as occurred over the fiscal union treaty last December.
We should work constructively and pragmatically to develop a system of variable geometry, a concept that has worked well in the EU since the end of the 1980s. We should look at the euro, look at Schengen and look at the way in which we handle justice and home affairs legislation to encompass also now the relationship between the euro ins and outs in the fields to be covered by the new eurozone steps towards economic integration, while safeguarding the integrity of the single market for all 27—soon to be 28—member states. Both these objectives seem to me to have been advanced modestly by last week’s European Council decisions on the first steps towards a eurozone banking union. This means rejecting the siren voices of those advocating a two-speed, two-tier European Union, which I believe is neither negotiable, sustainable nor in Britain’s interest. It means ceasing to chase the will-o’-the-wisp of repatriation.
Secondly, we should work flexibly and in partnership with the other EU member states that favour a rigorous approach to EU spending to secure agreement on a multi-annual financial framework for the seven years ahead when the European Council next meets, in February, to discuss this. That group of countries has already achieved considerable success in shrinking the excessive spending bids of the Commission and the European Parliament. There could and should be more progress in that direction before a deal is struck. However, we need to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by pushing the EU back into relying solely on annual budgets, which would likely be higher and less sensibly distributed than the multi-annual framework. This will require the Government to be bold enough to ignore the quixotic and opportunistic urgings of the House of Commons a couple of months ago at an earlier stage in the negotiating process.
Thirdly, we urgently need to develop a positive agenda for ourselves and for the European Union that reaches beyond the traditional fixed points of Britain’s EU positions on completion of the single priorities, completion of the single market and further enlargement, valid though those priorities remain and welcome though the recent agreement on the European patent is—a clear case, by the way, of more Europe being good for Britain and good for the EU. Should we not be working with the new French Government to respond to the pressure being put on our defence budgets by the policies of austerity? Should we not give a lead, as only our two countries can in this sector, to a more effective European defence and security policy that reflects the realities of the US Administration’s pivot towards Asia and its insistence that Europe needs to do more in its own back yard? I draw some encouragement from the wording of the European Council’s conclusions, which seem to provide a perfect framework within which we could give a lead, with the French, in the year leading up to the discussion that is to take place in December 2013.
Should we not, too, be working with our fellow EU partners in the G8 and in the G20 to ensure that Europe’s shared objectives of freer and fairer world trade and of more effective policies to combat climate change are properly reflected in the outcomes of the two summit meetings to be held in 2013? If Europe cannot get its act together, we can be sure that those two gatherings will be dominated by the relationship between the US and Russia and the US and China respectively. The Europeans, ourselves included, will be sidelined and marginalised. Both the World Trade Organisation talks and the UN-led negotiations on climate change desperately need new momentum from outside their overlarge and unwieldy negotiating processes. There is an opportunity to provide that and to check the tendency to turn away from international co-operation, which could be so damaging for middle-ranking powers with global interests such as ourselves.
None of these three lines of policy will be easy to achieve, nor will they be supported by the noisy band of Europhobic activists both outside and inside the Government’s own ranks, whose sole objective and priority is to propel the United Kingdom towards an early exit from the European Union; nor will they be achieved if the leadership of all three main parties, which continue to support Britain’s membership, do not put a lot more effort than they have in recent years into setting out, in compelling and persuasive terms, why it is in Britain’s interest to remain an active participant in EU policy formulation, and one with plenty of positive and appealing ideas. In the past four weeks there have been the first tentative signs of a response to that imperative. The speeches of the leader of the Opposition and of its own chair at the CBI conference and the speech of the Foreign Secretary in Berlin were such straws in the wind. However, much more will need to be done if the tide of Euroscepticism by default and by meretricious assertion is to be stemmed and reversed.
I shall conclude with a few words about the two European Bills to which we are being asked to give a Second Reading today. The Bill to enable the UK to ratify Croatia’s accession should be strongly supported. It represents another building block in the EU’s response to the sanguinary break-up of the former Yugoslavia, which is still work in progress with a long way to go. The aspirations of Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina must not be overlooked. Much has changed in Croatia for the better since it first applied. I was able to see some of that when I visited Zagreb in May to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Croatia’s joining the UN. The EU institutions and the people of Croatia will need to be vigilant to ensure that the ground gained in the approach to membership does not slip away after it is achieved, but there is no reason to hesitate now.
The second Bill, which enshrines the political deal to set aside the original intention of the Lisbon treaty to limit the continuing expansion of the European Commission and to ensure that the system of appointing one Commissioner for each member state remains in force, I support, too, but, I fear, only while holding my nose. The Commission is already too numerous and is unable to give all its members worthwhile jobs, a problem that will only get worse with enlargement, which I happen to support very strongly. While I accept the present provision as necessary, it is a necessary evil. This area will need to be revisited in the years ahead.
I am sure that 2013 will be another turbulent and difficult year for the EU, but it could also be the year in which a turning point is reached in those two existential crises that I have identified. I hope that all those who support an EU with Britain as a full and active member of it will join forces to make it so.
UK-Israel Life Sciences Council
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Baroness Warsi
As the noble Lord will be aware, the UK-Israel Life Sciences Council is a group of top scientists from both countries and includes Members of your Lordships’ House as well as, I think, four Nobel Prize winners. I think that all noble Lords would agree that we are at a very delicate stage in the Middle East peace process. As I have said from this Dispatch Box on many occasions in the past few weeks, 2013 will be a critical year. It is therefore important that we use whatever avenues we have to strengthen those diplomatic relations to achieve a peaceful resolution to a two-state solution in the Middle East.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, does the Minister accept that I would have no difficulty in answering my noble friend’s Question? I oppose fundamentally any boycotting of co-operation between academics and researchers in this country and those in Israel. However, does she not also agree that when the Government of Israel pay absolutely no respect to the views of the British Government on crucial issues of international policy, such as the legality of settlements, that is bound to have an effect on government-to-government relations, even if it should not have an effect on co-operation between scientists and academics?
Baroness Warsi
I am a firm believer that when matters are most difficult to discuss, that is the time to strengthen relationships further. We have never managed to resolve any matter by walking away from relationships. It is because we have strong relationships with Israel on a variety of issues that we can be so robust in our engagement. I hope noble Lords will agree that we have been robust in that engagement in the past week. Noble Lords will be aware that on Monday the Israeli ambassador was called in by the Minister for the Middle East to express our grave concerns about illegal settlements and the comments made by the Israeli Government.
Iran
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Baroness Warsi
As I said at the outset, all options are on the table. It would be inappropriate for me to speculate on what scenarios may come forward in the future, and of course it would depend very much on the scenario we faced at the time. However, I can be clear that the Government are certainly mindful of their legal obligations within international law.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Does the Minister not agree that there would be no doubt whatever about the legal situation if Iran developed nuclear weapons? It would be illegal under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which was signed and ratified. However, rather than having the argument this afternoon about the legalities, is not the top priority, with the new American Administration, to revive the second of the two tracks—not the sanctions track, which must be kept up, but the track to talk to the Iranian regime? Would it not be worthwhile for the Government to take the view with the United States Administration that they should have some kind of bilateral contact with the Iranians before matters get to the point where they cannot be retrieved?
Baroness Warsi
Discussions about these matters are ongoing in a number of different ways. The noble Lord will be aware that the E3+3—Russia, China, the US and ourselves, France and Germany—have had four meetings since the beginning of this year; I think since February. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, is in the process of taking forward a further meeting, possibly before Christmas. We are absolutely committed to negotiating our way out of this matter.
Middle East: Gaza and Syria
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Warsi
My Lords, yes, I can absolutely give my noble friend an assurance on the second part of her question: these matters are being looked at extremely carefully. That is why we have a stepped approach in relation to support. I can assure my noble friend that these are ongoing discussions. The immediate crisis is at the forefront of our minds and it must be dealt with now. I can assure her that the decision on the United Nations General Assembly vote has not been taken. We are using our relationships and all efforts to make sure that the ultimate aim of a negotiated two-state solution is achieved, and we keep reminding people of the best way of achieving that.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her repeated assurances that no decision has been taken about the vote in the General Assembly on the status of Palestine. However, does she not recognise that the way in which the Statement was cast was highly negative in that effect and that the reference to the possibility that a voting of a resolution might paralyse the peace process is, frankly, a travesty? The peace process is paralysed by the position of the Prime Minister of Israel, who has been refusing to enter negotiations with President Abbas for a very long time. The idea that some action of the United Nations—which would, in any case, not involve recognising Palestine as a member of the United Nations but would be an intermediate status—could not possibly be said therefore to paralyse something that is already paralysed. Does she not further recognise that the consequences of Britain’s negative vote in those circumstances could be quite serious and would be very damaging to the position of President Abbas, who is already in great enough difficulties as it is?
Baroness Warsi
That is exactly why it is important for these Statements to be repeated in this House. It is important that the views of this House are taken on board. I and officials who are listening will make sure that this is taken back. We make it very clear in all our discussions with Israel that time is running out for a negotiated two-state solution. We have made it clear that of course they have to make progress in relation to the building of illegal settlements and in getting back to the negotiating table. As I said in the Statement, we use the same approach in relation to President Abbas. We encourage him to take the necessary steps to ensure that this matter is resolved through negotiation.
Piracy
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, the incidence of piracy in the Indian Ocean has rather slid off the front pages of the newspapers in recent months. That is partly due to the relative success of the measures taken by the international community to combat this modern form of an ancient scourge. However, it would be ridiculously complacent to believe that the problem has gone away or been mastered. There is all the more reason, therefore, to be grateful to my noble friend Lord Luce for initiating this debate and for swinging the spotlight back onto the many aspects of this problem which have yet to be effectively addressed.
I want to concentrate my own remarks on one aspect of the problem to which the EU home affairs sub-committee, which I chair, has devoted a good deal of attention, without as yet receiving any fully satisfactory response from the Government. That is the question of the laundering of the money paid out to the pirates in ransom. Some facts are not disputed. The pirates or their sponsors—their godfathers—have received and are still receiving massive quantities of cash in ransom for ships and their crews. Much of that money is assembled in this country, which is not in any way illegal. These moneys are therefore quite evidently criminal assets—the proceeds of crime—as soon as they are handed over. Yet those assembling these ransoms are not required to file with the Serious Organised Crime Agency a suspicious activity report, as they would have to do in any other circumstances in which money was being transferred to criminals or people suspected of being criminals.
My committee has stated on several occasions that it considers this omission—the omission of the requirement to file an SAR—as quite indefensible. Moreover, it surely does hamper any attempt to prevent these moneys subsequently being laundered. More recently, in a move that I warmly welcomed, and as part of the international community’s fight against piracy, it was decided to established a regional intelligence centre in the Seychelles to pursue, among other matters, the issue of money laundering. I asked in an earlier debate whether any relevant SAR material we might have would be made available to this new intelligence centre as it surely should be. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, who was at the time a Minister at the Home Office, said he would reply to that in writing, but I have still—some months later—not received any substantive reply on this point.
Therefore, I should be most grateful if the Minister would now respond to both these questions. What justification can there possibly be for not requiring the assemblers of ransoms to file an SAR? Are we making available relevant SAR material we may have to the intelligence centre in the Seychelles? Any serious campaign against piracy in the Indian Ocean must surely get to grips with the issue of money laundering.
I have one final point which was also made by speakers who preceded me. The challenge of piracy in the Indian Ocean cannot, of course, be met by naval action alone or even by naval action backed up by good intelligence. It must also involve the gradual re-establishment of stability and the rule of law in Somalia and the other countries of the region. I hope that the international community, of which we are a leading part in this region of the world, will not allow that task to fail through lack of resources and lack of political will, as it so lamentably did before in the 1990s.
Arms Trade Treaty Negotiations
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend is absolutely right. I fully endorse everything he says. I believe your Lordships are at heart, and certainly have been in past statements, fully in support of these very difficult negotiations and this high ambition of the British Government and that we should today take the opportunity further to reinforce the support for what officials have struggled to achieve over the years under successive Governments.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, does the Minister recognise—and I am not asking what our negotiating position is—that between now and Friday it is highly likely that we will have to make a choice between a robust treaty, which is not signed by everyone, and a weak treaty, which will not be worth the paper it is written on because it will be subscribed to by countries like Russia, which is busy exporting arms to a situation of humanitarian disaster in Syria as if there were no tomorrow? Will he confirm the very welcome position he gave that we will stick to our guns—perhaps a slightly unfortunate phrase—and not water down the arms trade treaty that we have set out to get, even if this means that some of the largest exporters are temporarily at least not going to sign up?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I have said that we are not going to sign a weak consensus. I know that the noble Lord, who is very versed in and a master of these negotiations, would not expect me to make statements about our negotiating position at this crucial stage. I repeat that a weak consensus or a feeble abandonment is not what is contemplated.
Court of Justice of the European Union
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I shall speak briefly in support of the Government’s resolution on the reform of the European Court of Justice. I will not go into the detail of the reforms, which have already been very competently described by the Minister, or into the detail of the grounds, which were well prepared by the excellent report produced during our last Session by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, and his Sub-Committee E of the EU Select Committee, which the Home Affairs sub-committee, which I chair, works in very close concert with. I join the noble Lord in deploring the fact that the Government have not agreed to the increase in the number of members of the General Court recommended in the report.
I shall address one or two more general issues about the European Court of Justice. It remains a cause for dismay, and sometimes despair, that so little is known in this country about the European Court of Justice, its rationale and its work. Even generally well-informed commentators find it difficult to distinguish between the European Union’s Court of Justice, which we are discussing this evening, and the Council of Europe’s human rights court. Yet these two bodies have jurisdiction over completely different areas of international law, which apply to a completely different membership— points that one would have thought were fairly easy to grasp.
Many commentators do not even try to understand the distinction. In their eyes, the two courts are simply part of some supposed European conspiracy designed to deprive law-abiding British citizens of their rights and sovereignty. All that is asserted despite the fact that the jurisdictions of both courts and the laws they exist to apply have all been established by the votes of this Parliament, just as our domestic laws have been. That these ill-informed criticisms have such a wide currency is no tribute to either the commentators who use them or the audiences to which they are addressed.
Just in case anyone is minded to regard what I have just said as a trifle paranoid, may I suggest that reading Hansard on the debate in another place on the reforms we are discussing tonight would cure them of that illusion? Not only were some of the interventions larded with phrases that would never be considered parliamentary if directed towards any court in this land, but in addition it was seriously suggested that our national interests would be best served if the European Court of Justice were indeed “bunged up”. Those are not my words; this rather juvenile, puerile humour in which European issues are often discussed in the other place is not one I would choose myself. That is surely a prime example of worst is best—a reasoning that it is bizarre to hear coming from supporters of the Government. With supporters like that, one wonders why they need an Opposition.
In contrast to that argument, I would suggest that the rationale for the European Court of Justice is a simple one that has been made by other noble Lords in this debate. From the outset, the European Communities, now the European Union, were granted certain carefully circumscribed legislative powers, and jurisdiction over disputes about the application of the treaties and laws adopted under them was to be exercised not simply by originally six and now 27 national legal systems but by a European court on which all member states were represented. In this way, from the very beginning the rule of law was a leitmotiv of this new international project, and common sense surely indicates that it has to be if concepts such as the single market—to which, rightly in my view, this country attaches primordial importance: a fact that the Minister underlined, which was welcome—are to provide the level playing field that we all seek.
That was the European Community we joined in 1973, so please do not let us hear again the argument that somehow we joined something different. The European Community that we joined had a Court of Justice with the powers necessary to apply European law. We may sometimes dislike or even deplore the Court’s judgments. Many of us do the same from time to time with regard to the judgments of our own domestic courts, but to contest or to seek to reverse or qualify the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction is to contest our membership of the European Union itself. All that was set out far more eloquently than I can do, during our debates on the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, by the late Lord Slynn of Hadley.
Do we have an interest in helping the European Court of Justice to work more efficiently and effectively, which is the purpose of the reforms that we are debating this evening? The answer to that must surely be yes. As a country that has for many centuries been committed to the rule of law, it is desirable that legal rulings should be provided without undue delay, and that the increased workload of the Court that inevitably flows from the geographical expansion of the European Union and the extension of its responsibilities into new policy areas should not result in such delay.
I have one final point to make. In 2014, Britain will have to decide whether to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over legislation in the fields of justice and home affairs, adopted before the Lisbon treaty came into force. That is to say: it was legislation that by definition was adopted by unanimity. The Government have, very correctly in my view, decided to consult widely about the decision then to either opt out or opt in to that jurisdiction, which all other member states are already committed to accepting by the end of 2014. They have agreed to put the matter to votes in both Houses. I have no intention of entering into the substance of that decision now. My plea is simply that those consultative processes and those votes should be based on full evidence of the pros and cons of the two possible courses of action, transparently presented and carefully considered.
My committee and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, will be seeking to provide the House with that evidence in good time. Meanwhile, I suggest that it would be better not to jump to conclusions, as so many Members of the other place have already done. It is better not to decide in haste and then repent at leisure.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I cannot really agree with that because I do not know exactly how the pressures will build up. It is possible, of course, that it will take a year—that is a gloomy assessment—but the report may be very well focused. The momentum behind it may increase. Indeed, the results of this evening’s debate may assist in the kind of momentum that the noble Lord wants to see.
The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, who obviously speaks with enormous authority on these matters, asked particularly why Section 10 applied to the draft regulation relating to temporary judges of the EU Civil Service Tribunal. The answer is that the legal basis of that draft regulation is Article 257 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and that is listed in Section 10(1)(d) of the European Union Act 2011, which we took through this House a year ago. That is the technical answer to the very detailed question that the noble Lord rightly put, because it is the detail that this Chamber can focus on remarkably effectively. It gives me great pleasure that your Lordships’ House is able to look in such detail at these matters.
Your Lordships mentioned a whole range of other issues, all coming back to the question of delay. Obviously costs are involved. In this age, we cannot just put them aside. Although costs should not be the decisive matter, we should take them very carefully into consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out that, in addition to the fact that the Lisbon treaty obviously added greatly to the functions and responsibilities of the ECJ, ahead lie other key decisions about opting in and opting out in 2014. They are decisions that we will have to debate and they will be taken very carefully. I think that almost every other noble Lord who spoke, including the noble Lords, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Liddle, and I have mentioned all the other noble Lords, all referred to speeding up matters.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I just want to ensure that the noble Lord appreciates, as I am sure he does, that the extension of the workload of the European Court of Justice, by getting jurisdiction over the justice and home affairs area, does not depend on our decision. Whichever decision we make, 26 countries will be subject to that jurisdiction in December 2014, and that is going to increase the workload massively, whatever decision we come to.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am sure that the noble Lord is right to emphasise that. The workload will increase. We have heard various reasons for that but some of them must arise from the changes made in the Lisbon treaty. Some arise from the increased litigation; some, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, reminded us, arise from international pressures; and some from the increased membership. All those things add up to the fact that this is a Court which, if it is to work efficiently, must clearly gear itself to a much greater load than it has had in the past. I do not think that anyone could dispute that.
As I said, the draft regulations are minor, and the Government support them. We think that they make a step in the right direction and that they will support increased efficiency in this very important European institution. They should also help to prevent a further backlog of cases building up before the European Court of Justice and the European Civil Service Tribunal. There has been a considerable problem for the General Court, as pointed out by the committee and as highlighted graphically by my noble friend Lord Bowness this evening.
If I may meet the challenge put by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, it is absolutely clear to us that an effective and efficient Court of Justice of the EU is in our national interest. British businesses rely on the timely administration of justice within the context of the single market, and a single market that is able to operate effectively is as crucial now as it ever was as we seek to restore the growth and confidence required to build Britain’s prosperity.
Therefore, the Government will continue to work on wider efficiency reforms to the Court of Justice of the European Union, as indeed they will continue to do in relation to the General Court. Those things will have to be taken carefully but we will press on with them.
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the discussion. I hope that I have covered every detailed point as well as the general points which I have been asked to comment on. If I have not, I shall of course write to your Lordships. I am grateful for the very clear message that has gone out from this House this evening, and I commend this Motion to the House.
Middle East: Recent Developments
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, faced with the kaleidoscopic series of developments in the Middle East that has followed the Arab awakening and which seems set to continue for the foreseeable future, it is clearly right that we should be debating these issues again a mere four months after our previous debate. I am grateful to the Government for making that possible, even if I cannot resist commenting that it would be even better if they could find time to debate other major areas of foreign policy.
I welcome, too, the Minister’s extremely comprehensive and helpful opening contribution to our debate. It is right that we should be debating this because the Middle East, as other noble Lords have observed, matters to this country and to the European Union as a whole in a way, and to an extent, that few other regions outside Europe do. It affects our security, our energy supplies, the flows of migration and many other issues too.
There are of course difficult policy choices to be made, ones that we have not always made very skilfully or wisely in the past, between, for example, the role of appalled spectator and victim of events or, on the other hand, that of an intrusive actor intervening forcefully and often insensitively. A third option is as a sympathetic neighbour recognising that it is for the countries of the Middle East to shape their own future, but ready to help evolutionary change across the region once the initial process of upheaval has passed. I am glad that we and our allies seem, broadly speaking, to have chosen the third option, and I think that we will need both strategic and tactical patience in sticking to it.
On the positive side of the ledger since we last debated, one can reasonably place the Egyptian presidential elections and the recent elections in Libya. Both sets of elections are of course only the first stages of a long and complex process that still has far to run, but both have confounded the predictions of the pessimists, and both are remarkable and probably irreversible developments in two countries that have never before experienced free and fair multiparty elections. On the negative side of the ledger must clearly stand the continuing conflict in Syria, disfigured by increasing evidence of massacres of innocent civilians by the regime’s supporters and by the stalemate over international efforts to bring the fighting to an end and to initiate a transitional process away from Ba’athist dictatorship.
Somewhere in between on the ledger, I suggest, stands the unsatisfactorily dilatory process of talks over Iran’s nuclear programme and the absence of any negotiating activity at all over Palestine. Both these latter two issues mask an explosive potential that we ignore at our peril. I listened with great interest to my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup’s description of the dangers that face us from a failure to achieve a negotiated solution on Iran, with which I totally agree.
In Syria, the arguments against any external military intervention—that, I suggest, includes the supply of weapons—still seem to outweigh the arguments in favour of a no-fly zone or the establishment of safe areas, even if the balance between them is not as clear-cut as it was at the outset. The international community’s responsibility to protect is still, I would argue, better exercised through diplomatic, humanitarian and economic action than through the use of force. The present stalemate, though, while the sectarian nature of the conflict becomes more and more marked, with disastrous potential effects on the future stability of the country, and while arms and military expertise pour in, particularly from Russia and Iran, is neither sustainable nor ought it to be accepted. I would be grateful if the Minister could say something about what we know about arms and military expertise flows that come from those two countries.
Surely we need to bring home more clearly than we have done hitherto that war crimes and crimes against humanity, by whomsoever committed, will one day end up before the International Criminal Court, and that the universal jurisdiction in the convention against torture already applies to those who are using these methods. Making these points is all the more urgent in the wake of the latest news we have had of yet another massacre by supporters of the regime.
More generally, is it not time that we went back to the UN Security Council and sought a mandatory resolution—that is to say, a Chapter 7 resolution—that would set stated timelines for Kofi Annan’s six-point plan and his transitional process to be accepted and backed that up by a clear threat of economic sanctions if that timeline was ignored? It is, of course, possible that the Russians will veto such a resolution. Their policy so far has been callous and opportunistic, and we have little or nothing to show for all the efforts to enlist their support for a genuine transition, but my experience is that you never find out just how firm that blocking position is until you put it to the test. Personally, I think that even if the Russians were to veto, our position would be better if we had put them before their responsibilities than if we allowed them to emasculate any resolution that we move forward in an attempt to get away from the deadlock. Meanwhile, I hope that the Minister can confirm that we and our allies are working closely with the Arab League and will urge consistently on the Syrian opposition the need for greater unity and for a public commitment to a democratic alternative to the Assad regime that will respect and protect all religious and ethnic groups in the country.
For Egypt and other countries now pursuing a peaceful process of evolution—countries such as Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen and Jordan—the challenge for the international community is principally an economic one. The success or failure of these processes of evolution will depend crucially on whether the new democratically elected Governments can offer better prospects to their rapidly growing young populations. That requires better trade outlets, greater skills, more inward investment, the establishment of the tourist industry and much else besides which, while not exclusively in the gift of outside countries, can be greatly facilitated and encouraged by their activities. Perhaps the Minister will say a little about what the European Union is doing in that respect and also about what is being done through such instruments as DfID, the British Council, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the BBC. Are their activities as well funded as they need to be? Are their efforts as well co-ordinated as they need to be if they are to be effective?
With the negotiations between the five plus one in Iran still continuing, however desultorily, it is probably wise not to say too much, but I regret—here I join the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on one point that he made—that with all the emphasis on sanctions and the rumours of military action, the positive side of the equation—what Iran could hope for if it could satisfy the UN comprehensively about the peaceful nature of its nuclear programmes—is being marginalised and overlooked. Successful negotiations require benefits for all the parties to them, and we should not lose sight of that. What is not in doubt is that failure to reach a negotiated solution will bring seriously negative consequences for all concerned.
The moribund nature of the Middle East peace process while settlement activity in the Occupied Territories continues apace should bring solace to no one, although I sometimes fear that the Government of Israel regard it as better than any of the alternatives. If they do, I fear they are grievously wrong, and it will not be long before they find that out. Politics being politics and the central role of the US in any peace process not being easy to dispute, it is not likely that any serious movement will take place until after the US presidential election in November, but thereafter, a serious attempt to move ahead again will be the only alternative to a drift towards conflict. I say without any pleasure at all, having listened to a number of contributions to the debate, particularly that of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, that of course the case for aid and trade is a strong one, but it is never going to do the trick on the Palestine issue. Politics will always trump aid and trade. Meanwhile, I hope that the Minister can say what the UK is doing to ensure that a conference on a Middle East weapons-free zone, scheduled for the end of this year becomes the start of a continuing process, and not a fiasco or a slanging match.
In conclusion, it cannot be said that the prospects in the Middle East are rosy. Nor, I believe, are they without hope. I hope that we can resist an obsession with the precise religious content of the Governments emerging from the new democratic processes and, even more, resist the vocabulary of Islamophobia. There is far too much of it around. The Governments of these countries are for them to decide. We should judge them by their deeds, not by their words or their religious beliefs.