Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Lord Howe of Aberavon Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am well aware from many conversations with the Foreign Secretary that he has been working extremely hard over the past six months and more to engage the Russians on a wide range of issues; as the noble Lord will know from long experience, this is not always easy. It has been something that we have needed to do. Whether one calls the negotiating group on Iran the E3+3 or the P5+1, some of the members of that group are easier to work with than others but we do try to hold them all together.

On the current question, as I said in the Statement, we are moving forward gradually and proportionately and looking for reciprocal gestures and, so far, so relatively good. As the noble Lord will know, the current regime in Iran is complex and one always has to be aware that there are other aspects of the regime from the ones to whom we are talking.

[Lord Howe of Aberavon (Con)]

I wish to say only a few words and to concentrate on Ukraine in this context, because it is an unusual subject for us to be considering and it is in a very serious condition. I am glad also to be here in the presence of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, as very shortly after Ukraine began emerging from the regional history the two of us were invited to form part of a multinational advisory group in Ukraine, helping it to develop its nationhood. At different stages we had the privilege of meeting both Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. It is very important to hear that our Government are supporting Ukraine with its problems at present; it certainly needs it.

I remember that when the two of us went down for the first time into Independence Square it was full of people, and we could not help noticing the statue of Stalin covered over with posters on behalf of the Pope. I remember that it was Stalin who said:

“The Pope! How many divisions has he got?”.

It shows, in a way, the extent of the divisions between the two groups in those early years of Ukraine’s growing independence. Having met both Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, one realises that they are both figures of some substance and figures facing real problems without all that much background and without assistance. It is important that we recognise the significance of Ukraine as an independent country of some real substance in the future, and I am delighted that Her Majesty’s Government are already doing so to that effect. It deserves it and I am sure that we can give some real help.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for all those comments, with which I agree.

Commonwealth and Commonwealth Charter

Lord Howe of Aberavon Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

My Lords, there may be some surprise when I commence by saying that this has been one of my interests for more than 75 years. I long cherished the card that was given to me through the Carmel Sunday school in Aberavon, which was issued by King George V on his Silver Jubilee. The card said:

“I ask you to remember that in days to come you will be citizens of a great Empire”.

I am glad to welcome that proposition, although the conclusion may be rather different from that which the King was expecting at that time. The contents most compactly set out in the Charter of the Commonwealth, which have been explained and endorsed already by a number of colleagues, set out what should be the non-imperial conclusion.

I look back on the period when I was able to struggle to play some part in it. Some 12 years after that Sunday school, I found myself on the equator in Kenya, as a lieutenant in the Royal Signals but attached to the East African Signals, themselves attached to the King’s African Rifles. One of my tasks was to run the educational part that we were meant to play with our very effective, long-serving African soldiers. There were about 100 soldiers in that unit including about a dozen Britons, almost all of whom had been in the Burma campaign. Some of the African soldiers had been in London for the victory parade and had been able to establish partnerships with British citizens here at home. I was trying, when doing the non-military work that I had to do, to persuade them that Bwana “Kingy George” was rather better than Bwana Joe Stalin. I hope that I succeeded to some extent. It means having the direct experience of a reality that was less of an empire and more of a partnership, which is what many speakers today have already identified with.

The concept of empire implies authoritarianism. We can see some examples of imperial authoritarianism, which loom in my mind, which help to distort or reform our thinking. I remember, when I had come back from Kenya and arrived at Cambridge, that a gentleman called Patrick Gordon Walker was the Secretary of State for the Commonwealth. He provoked a tremendous student demonstration of horror when he sacked the head of Bechuanaland, Seretse Khama, for the incredible reason that Seretse Khama had married a former London typist. That struck as something contrary to all his other aspects. Many of us reacted with great hostility to that. It led, among other things, to the emergence and the creation by Conservative young colleagues like myself of the Bow Group, when we saw other features taking place. Between 1950 and 1960 there had been an inflow of some 750,000 people from this empire, and it very much strengthened our feeling that we had to make sure that discrimination did not become part of our territory.

Since then, I have been able to see the way in which the Commonwealth worked during my time in office, in a very pragmatic and positive way. For example, the Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting, of which I was chairman during my time as Chancellor, was in itself more important than the IMF. Tension, of course, was not unknown because of the difference in attitudes between different members of the Commonwealth towards the persistence of apartheid in South Africa. Our Commonwealth conference meetings were dominated by the extent to which we could and should do more to challenge that. We had one CHOGM meeting establishing an Eminent Persons Group led by Malcolm Frazer, the Australian Prime Minister. He led a mission on behalf of the Commonwealth to South Africa to challenge apartheid as it then was. They were able to secure Nelson Mandela’s release from Robin Island. When Malcolm Frazer went to see him in his cell, Nelson Mandela rather startled him by asking the question, “Do tell me, is Donald Bradman still alive?”. That seems to underline the unity of the Commonwealth, binding many of us together. It is in that sense that Britain, as one of the Commonwealth countries, was able thereafter to bring pressure to bear against apartheid. We were able to propaganda like that in South Africa, and were able to see substantial success there in the end.

That background, with the Commonwealth as a collective organisation, supporting, encouraging, offering up advocacy of the right course of events, underlines to me the extent of the value of the Commonwealth declaration today. It underlines the positive value of the most practically effective UK/multinational organisation in this context, whether that is alongside the UK/People’s Republic of China relationship, the EU, NATO, the UK/US or the United Nations. In the context that we are talking about, the Commonwealth has a collective wisdom that can help to advance matters in the right way.

I think that that is all I need to say. I have spoken not about contemporary events but about the history and background that have brought us to the present position. It is that background against which the United Kingdom should approach and influence Commonwealth members and benefit from the collective relationship, one that has come into existence and deserves to be enhanced and amplified.

China: Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament

Lord Howe of Aberavon Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

My Lords, as is the case perhaps too often when I speak in the House, I find myself reverting to the ancient past in my own recollections. I will try to avoid it, but there is no doubt that on the subject brought before us by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, on which the two subsequent speakers emphasised the importance of the threatening weaponry concerned and of multilateral consideration of how we handle it, there is common ground. The question that may interest other people, as it has me, is how far we can be confident in a country such as the People’s Republic of China, which has a history that is unique in so many ways and which is overwhelmingly important in the consideration of this subject.

Remarkably, this reminds me—this again is one of my faults—of the occasion some 60 years ago when I first became aware of the importance of China. I was proceeding with two other Cambridge undergraduates, my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and EAW Bullock—I think that he later became a diplomat—through south Wales, campaigning for the Conservative Party in the Constitutional Club of Ebbw Vale. On the evening we were in Tredegar Constitutional Club, the news was announced that the Labour Party Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, had announced Britain’s decision to recognise the emergence as a country of the People’s Republic of China. We were asked with some anxiety whether we agreed with this hazardous Labour Foreign Secretary in taking such a view. Fortunately, we had all been instructed in international law by Professor Eli Lauterpacht at Cambridge, and were able to say that, if a Government have been established with clear, credible control of a clearly defined territory, we should recognise it.

I have been facing this question in prospect for some 60 years and I now underline what other speakers have already said about the huge importance of China in this context. I shall add one other thing: it could have been historically uncomfortable if we had not given that answer because 250 years before that, George III, in consultation with Emperor Qiang Long, agreed on the importance of communication and a relationship between our two countries. So there has long been mutual respect, which makes this debate important.

In today’s context, one wonders about the western media’s outpourings on China’s party congress and its constitution, focusing too often on Chinese leaders as though they were old men in black suits, ignoring political reform and being highly challenged. We have to underline—as others have already done—the importance in this context of hoping for active participation by the People’s Republic of China. It is an area where there is some anxiety—as there often is about the People’s Republic of China. How we can be sure, our media often ask, about the sincerity and credibility of the people that I have indicated they describe? Fortunately, there have been a number of examples of the Chinese Government’s respect for the importance of law and the legal system, not only in the international fields that we are talking about, but in relation to their Government and, for example, to the discussions with us about the future of Hong Kong, which became an important issue. From that time they had respect for the special nature of Hong Kong in the context of a two-country system, which in a way exceeded our legitimate claim.

Our title to Hong Kong, under the lease we had agreed at the end of the 19th century, extended only to some 18% of Hong Kong’s territory and we had claimed the remaining 82% by the sheer force of our presence there. The Chinese had become accustomed to regarding the legitimacy and unity of the entire territory, recognising the importance of it being distinguished from and identified as a special component in the China where Hong Kong was thereafter going to live. That shows the respect we can expect from the attitude of Chinese leaders to the importance of an international legal approach to this question, and of securing agreement between China and the remainder of the world—not just with ourselves, but with all those concerned with the continued existence of these nuclear weapons.

It is important to remember that China in fact has respect for law as such. I have had some contact with this, apart from the Hong Kong negotiations, because of my presidency of the Great Britain-China Centre for many years. Perhaps I should have declared that interest earlier than now. The truth is that considerable discussion and negotiation takes place between our own modest GBCC and Chinese authorities about the role of law in a society, whether national or international. We have been able to discuss with the Chinese a range of important aspects of the legal system nationally, including the need for professionalism in China’s judges, the establishment, with our help, of a judicial studies training programme, the improving role of judicial management, consideration of strengthening the rights of defence lawyers, and a code of conduct for Chinese lawyers in other respects. In administrative law, there is the promotion of media freedom and ethics and, although it may be difficult for all of us to believe it, pushing human rights up the Chinese news agenda and improving the position of media regulation within that society.

All this may seem to be a departure from the subject we are primarily addressing, but I hope it helps to assure colleagues in this House of the importance of the subject of the possible possession of these fearful weapons by one of the world’s largest societies, but alongside that, the importance of its awareness of the role of law whether within the nation or between nations. We should note the extent to which, for historical reasons, our country has the capacity to undertake this kind of discussion. That is because of a substantial, historic—and conceited, if I may say—Government as important as the People’s Republic of China. So I feel much assured—

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Perhaps I may ask the noble and learned Lord a question. He conducted a brilliant negotiation over Hong Kong when he was Foreign Secretary, but does he regard the fact that Hong Kong has survived for 20 years as an indication that we now have a well settled two-regime system in China?

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

Indeed, of course I do, and I would add that I have shed Hong Kong behind me because of the extent to which it has been established. We can all take from that some comfort about the nature of the People’s Republic of China as well. It is that satisfaction which has enabled me to go on other missions to China to discuss matters of common interest, including that which we are discussing today.

I am delighted as always to find myself speaking in the same tone and striking the same note as the noble Baroness who has just so kindly intervened in my observations. It is time that I came to a close.