Nuclear Weapons
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the announcements that we made in that respect are totally consistent with our obligations under the NPT. Specific elements and aspects within the NPT ensure that we meet those obligations. Requirements within the NPT ensure that all countries that have signed up to it fulfil their obligations, and the United Kingdom does just that.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister accept how welcome it was that the Government —perhaps a little belatedly—agreed to the P5 statement that
“a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”
which was issued last week? What do the Government intend with regard to the strategic dialogue among the P5 for achieving a reduction in the risk of nuclear war? What is the timetable for further meetings and what content are the Government putting into that dialogue?
Russia
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I am seeking to respond. Whether this is historical or current, when an action has been undertaken by Russia, in entering the region of a sovereign state, occupying it and annexing it, the fact that that has been done previously, or historically, should not deter us from ensuring that we continue to stand by Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and integrity. Crimea remains part of that territorial sovereignty and integrity.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
Does the Minister not agree that the object we are all pursuing is effective deterrence? Does he not think that the deterrent capacity of the western alliance would be greater if we could specify more precisely what economic sanctions would be imposed if Russia crossed the red line we are drawing regarding the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine? At the moment, the Russians can delude themselves—perhaps actually believe—that we will not be able to agree anything in those circumstances. If we were to state now some of the specifics of what would happen, that might be an effective deterrent.
Secondly, does he not agree that we need to go into these talks—heaven knows, they are not going to finish this week—with a détente approach that talks about the things we believe should be done to increase strategic stability, reduce the tension and de-escalate, such as arms control and measures in the conventional forces in Europe agreement concerning notification of military exercises and so on? We need to have that. Perhaps the Minister could say something about what NATO will go in with in its hand.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the question of specific action, as I have already said in response to the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Purvis, we will of course look to co-ordinate any actions. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has been very clear that a Russian incursion into Ukraine would be a strategic mistake. There should be no doubt that Russian military aggression will be met with massive economic consequence through co-ordinated —I stress that again—economic sanctions by allies and partners, specifically targeting Russian financial transactions, assets and, indeed, individuals. Beyond that, it would be speculative and inappropriate for me to answer with any more detail, but rest assured that we will act in co-ordination with our allies in this respect.
On the noble Lord’s second question, I agree with him: it is important that we look to de-escalate. As I said, I have seen the early reports of the discussions between the United States and Russia, and the tone of those discussions, from both sides, irrespective of the differing positions—of course, we align ourselves with the position of the United States—was constructive. I also note the comments of the Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said that Russia certainly does not intend to make further incursions. Through these talks, which have taken place through the US, but also further talks this week, we have and will emphasise once again Russia’s own obligations to agreements they have signed, including the Budapest memorandum.
Refugees: Mass Displacement
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, it is conventional to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this topical and timely debate, and I do so wholeheartedly—all the more so because our debate today draws together the many threads of a series of migration crises around the world and their principal drivers. Some are mainly driven by security considerations—think Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia or Myanmar—and some by mainly economic considerations; think sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, or Latin America to the US. One thing they all have in common is that we, the international community, are not addressing them very effectively or in a very humane fashion. Another is that they cannot be so addressed by neglect, denial, building walls or ignoring our obligations under international law.
When it comes to the root causes of displacement in this modern world, the security ones cannot possibly be ignored. The experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan mean that there are highly unlikely to be coalitions of the willing ready to step forward in the foreseeable future to deal with the challenges of state failure and of gross breaches of international humanitarian law, so, however imperfect their efforts have so far proved to be, we are going to have to put more reliance on the UN and on such regional organisations as the African Union working in concert with the UN.
Our own contribution to UN peacekeeping can most politely be described as modest. We surely need to do more, particularly by supplying the ever more complex requirements of multifaceted peacekeeping. We need to strengthen the UN Secretary-General’s capacity for conflict prevention and to encourage António Guterres, just starting his second term of office, to make more use of Article 99 of the UN charter to bring matters, on his own responsibility, to the Security Council. If that is to be effective, it will also require restoring a greater willingness of its permanent members to work together. We should look again at the toolbox available to implement the responsibility to protect, focusing on a much wider agenda than that of military intervention.
The economic drivers of displacement are complex and daunting too, but they surely all require helping developing countries to build their economies, to provide employment for their growing populations, to have better educational opportunities for women and girls in particular, to have better primary healthcare systems and to be better equipped to mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change. All those policies require resources, which is what makes the Government’s decision to ignore our commitment in law to devote 0.7% of our GNI to overseas aid and, alone among the G7, impose drastic cuts on our aid budget just when it is most needed so aberrant and so urgent to be reversed.
What are we doing to give developing countries better trade access? There is not a single African or Latin American country on our priority list for negotiating free trade agreements. What are we doing to use our competition policy powers to make private transfers and remittances to developing countries less costly? It is a statement of the obvious to say that this country cannot hope to deal on its own with the root causes of displacement, which will require major collective effort if they are to be counted. That calls for close co-operation with like-minded developing countries, our fellow Europeans, the US, Commonwealth countries and Japan, and it will require working with developing countries in a spirit of genuine partnership, unlike the leadership-driven approaches of the past. On our success in playing an active role in those wider aspects will depend our success in promoting global policies for years to come and in gaining acceptance for our claim, as yet unsubstantiated, to represent a “global Britain”.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I am speaking in the gap and will therefore not detain your Lordships long. Having been much involved in the Bosnian tragedy as Britain’s Permanent Representative to the UN until July 1995, which was before the Dayton accords were concluded but after the horrors of Srebrenica, I thought it right to participate. I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for securing such a timely occasion to debate this important matter.
I will make only three points. First, the policies being pursued by Republika Srpska are not only a complete denial and contravention of the Dayton accords but a real threat to international peace and security in the wider west Balkans region. I hope the Government will do all they can to deter these policies, including by working as closely as possible with the European Union and its member states, who must be the key actors in this, along with the United States. Unfortunately, I do not believe we are a key actor on our own, but we need to work with others. I hope therefore that the Minister will make it clear that we will keep in lockstep with the European Union in its response to any events in Bosnia that may now occur and resist any attempts to play us off against each other—a feature of every Balkan crisis for the last 100 years or more.
Secondly, I warmly welcome the intention of the incoming Prime Minister of Bulgaria to lift Bulgaria’s veto on the opening of North Macedonia’s accession negotiations. EU accession by the remaining non-members in the west Balkans is the sine qua non of peace, security and prosperity in that whole region. Progress on that has been very slow and almost invisible for far too long and it really would be good if the incoming French EU presidency abandoned the hesitations it has had in this respect. Britain is of course in no position to play a role in that matter, but we did participate in the Thessaloniki commitment that the EU would admit all the countries of the region.
Thirdly, we really should not let the cuts in our aid budget lead us to withdrawing from the good work we have done in recent years in strengthening democracy, human rights, the rule of law and freedom of speech right across the region, including in Bosnia. That would be a foolish error, as neglect of the west Balkans has proved to be again and again, for 150 years.
International Day of Democracy
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s first point—it is not often that I say this to him—I totally agree with him. He knows my views on the Council of Europe. On Belarus, the United Kingdom has worked very strongly and closely with key partners, including the G7, in calling out the flagrant betrayal of democracy and the continued reliance on Russia. It comes back to the point that my noble friend Lady Anelay raised about Russia and Russian support. It is therefore important that we build alliances, strengthen coalitions and co-operation, and send a clear message to Russia that its aggression, particularly in Europe—but also elsewhere around the world—will not be tolerated. In doing so, however, we must build alliances and partnerships.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister tell the House whether we were consulted before last week’s summit of democracies about the division between the democratic sheep and the undemocratic goats? Did we endorse the choice made by the United States?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, while the United States played the role of the shepherd, I assure the noble Lord that we were very much not just part of the flock, but part and parcel of the decision-making and setting of the agenda of the democracy summit. I myself met with Uzra Zeya, the lead Under-Secretary of State for this summit, and discussed in detail issues of media freedom and illicit finance, which were very much part and parcel of the discussions at the summit.
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what the United Kingdom’s contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is in the current year and next year; and what steps they are taking to ensure that UNRWA does not run out of funds.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the United Kingdom is a long-term supporter of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—UNRWA. So far in 2021 we have provided £27.9 million to UNRWA, although final figures will be published in the annual statistics for international development report. This includes an additional £1 million that I can announce today for UNRWA’s flash appeal following the Gaza conflict, taking our total contribution to the appeal to £4.2 million. We are also working with UNRWA to improve its financial viability.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, perhaps more for its tone than its substance. Could he confirm that the figure he gave for 2020-21 contrasts with the figure of £70 million in 2018; that is, a cut of something in the region of 60%? Does he also agree that UNWRA’s work is more valuable and more vital in a period such as now when there are no talks going on about resolving the Israel/Palestine dispute? Do not the two things contrast rather sharply?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s second point about talks, I take encouragement that recently, for the first time in many years, President Herzog and President Abbas have spoken, which is a positive. On UNRWA, the noble Lord is correct. The budget has reduced, but nevertheless the funding I stated continues to provide important support, particularly in education for more than 500,000 children, half of whom are girls, within the Palestinian territories.
China: Genocide
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Alton has most admirably and in great detail set out the facts that confront us. I will not repeat what he said, because he has been an example to all of us in the way that he has brought this matter, time and again, before your Lordships’ House.
I suspect that I may be one of the few Members of your Lordships’ House, perhaps the only one, who has some direct experience, and indeed shared collective responsibility, of having failed to avert not one but two genocides—those in Rwanda and at Srebrenica—when I was Britain’s representative at the UN Security Council. Those were genocides that met the Government’s —in my view—narrow and legalistic criterion of being so judged by an international court. That experience scarred my conscience and demonstrated how defective the 1948 genocide convention was, lacking as it did any enforcement provisions or processes.
Following those two searing events, some progress was made to meet the challenges of prevention of genocide and retribution for it. In 1999, the International Criminal Court was established, albeit with a lot of signatories missing, and, in 2005, the “responsibility to protect” norm was endorsed unanimously at a UN summit. But neither of these steps forward has prevented further genocides being committed—most notably and unmistakeably, I would argue, in an instance mentioned by my noble friend Lord Alton, on the Yazidi community in northern Iraq and Syria by IS, for which, shamefully, no legal proceedings at the ICC have yet been instituted.
Now, in Xinjiang, evidence has emerged, validated by journalists, academics, and members of the Uighur community and their families, by technical means and by many Members of your Lordships’ House, of acts by the Chinese Government which undoubtedly constitute serious breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights against the Uighur people of that region and which, being based on ethnic and religious identity, resemble genocide or a prelude to it. Faced with this evidence, what has been the Government’s response? To repeat what I have called a narrow, legalistic definition of genocide, that only an international court can define it as such.
There are, I suggest, two fundamental defects to that view. The first is that, for genocide to be so deemed, a lot of people—in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands, and at Srebrenica, thousands—have first to be killed. The second is that, as China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council with a veto, and a non-member of the ICC, there is not the slightest chance of that criterion ever being met.
I therefore hope that, when the Minister replies to this debate, he will not simply repeat what has been said so often before, and cease saying what the Government will not do when genocidal evidence emerges, as it has done, and will focus rather on what they will say and will do. First, I suggest that, if such evidence is solid and convincing—and it looks like that to me—the Government should not hesitate to say that it constitutes a prima facie case for deeming that genocide is taking, or has taken, place. Secondly, I hope that he will also say that, if they do take that view on the prima facie case, our policies will be based on and guided by that prima facie judgment. If we can take those two steps, we would be beginning to contribute effectively both to prevention and to retribution, instead of just wringing our hands and waiting for the bodies to be brought out.
International Development Strategy
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, we want to ensure that everyone has the ability to thrive and meet their potential. That is a key focus of our approach. We are restoring funding to women and girls to pre-ODA cut levels, focusing on giving more girls a quality education, ending the appalling practice of female genital mutilation, supporting girls’ health and ending the abhorrent use of sexual violence around the world, particularly in conflict. Educating girls is one of the best investments that we can make to fight poverty. Following the recent SR, decisions on specific allocations and individual programmes will be published shortly.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister brief the House on any new commitments that were made under the aid programme during the two weeks of the COP 26 conference that he attended? Will they be funded over and above the 0.5% GNI that has already been allocated, or are the Government going to rob Peter to pay Paul?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, the Government committed some time ago—I believe it was two years ago—to double our international climate finance to £11.6 billion. There was a commitment from the Prime Minister that we will add £1 billion to that commitment if the financial trajectory that is anticipated for this country continues and we meet various criteria, but the commitments that were announced around Amazon forest protection, indigenous people’s support and so on will come from the international climate finance commitment that has already been made.
Iran
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I served on the International Relations and Defence Committee of your Lordships’ House. As the noble Lord has said, we came to the very clear conclusion that it was in Britain’s interest to sustain the JCPOA and t do everything possible to reverse the action taken by the Trump Administration. That was our clear position, and I think it was the right one.
Successive British Governments, as far back as when Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary, and of different parties, including the coalition, took the view that active diplomacy backed up by economic sanctions was the best way to head off the risk of Iran acquiring fissile material capable of arming a nuclear weapon. Those Governments sustained that policy even in the face of great pressure from the Trump Administration to renege on the JCPOA which had been agreed with Iran in 2015. I believe they were right to do so and are right now to continue doing so, in concert with the Biden Administration’s efforts to revive the JCPOA and to bring Iran back into conformity with its provisions.
Why so? Because alternative courses of action, including that chosen by President Trump of “maximum pressure,” showed no signs whatever of working and contained massive risks to the whole international community: the risk of an Iran either with nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery, or so close to that as to represent a credible threat to obtain them; a potential, indeed probable, nuclear arms race in a very volatile region; irreparable damage to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is a cornerstone of international peace of security; and the possibility of another armed conflict in a region which has already seen too many of them. Frankly, that is quite a list of risks.
Of course, it takes two to tango in this attempt to revive the JCPOA. The hiatus in the Vienna talks following the Iranian presidential election leaves the diplomatic route hanging by a thread, exemplified by the visit to Tehran last week of the co-ordinator of the E3’s position. But the risks from the diplomatic route collapsing makes going the last mile worthwhile—indeed, necessary, I suggest—and I strongly support the Government’s policy of doing just that.
I also share the views expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Lamont, that we ought discreetly to look for ways in which our interests and those of Iran overlap, whether it be the future of Afghanistan, drugs or the handling of flows of refugees. I do hope that the Government will find some way of opening up channels of discussion—not linking it with any other issue but simply reflecting the fact that there is an overlap in our fundamental interests in these matters. Iran suffers as much as any country from the flow of drugs, suffers hugely from the flow of refugees, and will be a victim of any terrorist outbreaks based either on the activities of ISIS in Afghanistan or on the Taliban themselves—because they will be directed against Iran’s co-religionists, the Hazara.
In the long run, the best solution to tensions in the Gulf region remains agreement by all sides to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, to cease meddling in each other’s internal affairs, and to work together on economic co-operation, of which there could be a massive amount. But that will be a work of years, not of weeks or months. I just hope that we will not lose sight of it, because it is the only viable way forward in a region where we have considerable political, security and commercial interests. Until we can get to that position, we will be continually faced by these crises.
As to the cruel and unjustified treatment of British-Iranian dual nationals, exemplified by the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, no effort to bring that to an end should be spared by the Government. However, I have to say that linking it in any way to the nuclear issue is only too likely to prove counterproductive and unsuccessful.
UN Peacebuilding Fund: Financial Support
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on my noble friend’s second question, we are seeking to do that at the earliest opportunity, but I can reassure her that the equalities assessment across all areas was very much part of our thinking and our decision-making, including across bilateral country spend. We are working on the annual report and looking to produce it—it will be later this year. When I have a specific date, I will of course inform my noble friend.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]
My Lords, is the Minister aware that when António Guterres became Secretary-General of the UN—I am delighted that the Minister will be seeing him tomorrow—among his top priorities were conflict prevention and peacebuilding? Our Government supported those priorities, including with resources. Does the Minister recognise that the cuts he referred to today are, in fact, us letting down the United Nations? I suggest that is hardly an auspicious way of recognising the 80th anniversary of that first Atlantic charter, which laid the foundation stone for the establishment of the UN.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The noble Lord will know that I respect his deep insights into the workings of the UN. However, as I indicated, my experience, through my direct dealings, is that, while these are challenging circumstances, the United Nations recognises the circumstances we are working in and, equally, the importance of the United Kingdom’s continued support of the multilateral system, through the UN.