Ukraine: BBC World Service

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question. I hope that the answers I have already given demonstrate that there is nothing other than respect for the service that the BBC World Service provides and an absolute commitment that that service will continue. For all the reasons we know, it is so important.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has a point: the time has come to use our soft power effectively. The entire Russian murder campaign is conducted behind a cover of a wall of lies and fake news and that has to be countered. Even though there may be separate views about the long-term funding of the BBC’s excellent World Service, now is the time to concentrate reviews, resources and effort on boosting our counter to this battle of lies, which is where the war is being fought. Could my noble friend take back this very strong message to his colleagues? I think we could do a lot more in this area.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I strongly agree with the point made by my noble friend. I do not think there is any question on this; I am certainly not aware of anything that has been said that would in any way suggest that the Government do not recognise the tremendous value that the World Service provides, particularly in circumstances such as today’s, where, as my noble friend said, we are up against a brutal regime which is second to none globally in the art of misinformation. So I strongly agree with my noble friend’s comments and will convey the message from him and other noble Lords to the department.

Sanctions

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister will have noticed that, on Friday, China and India—in fact, the UAE as well—refused to condemn outright the Russian bloody assault by abstaining. Has he also noticed that China and India are, I am afraid, busy preparing special payments arrangements internationally with Moscow to avoid the effect of the sanctions we are seeking to apply? Perhaps China is beyond reach in this matter, but surely, we have some alliance and understanding with India. Can we not persuade India to join the rest of the democracies—it is the world’s greatest democracy, after all—before it goes on this path, which will be very damaging to our cause?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that, at both the UN in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva, two resolutions are currently tabled. We are working on an extensive lobbying campaign to ensure maximum support for the two Ukraine resolutions in both places.

On my noble friend’s point about the UN Security Council, he is of course correct that three countries abstained, and Russia also vetoed the resolution that was passed. We are dealing directly with and making our case to not just the UAE and India but China as well. Indeed, in terms of our lobbying effort through our ambassador and the team on the ground in New York, we were pleased that China did not veto the UN security resolution but abstained instead.

My noble friend makes valid points on India, and I know for a fact that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will speak with Prime Minister Modi today or tomorrow.

Ukraine: NATO Membership

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness for her support. Again, it is important that there is a single unitary voice from your Lordships’ House and across both Houses of Parliament against this unprovoked Russian aggression against a sovereign state. On the issue of cyber, I was in Estonia about 10 days ago as part of our engagement on broader issues. I met our forces on the ground there and looked at our capabilities, including cyber. We are, not just through NATO but directly, offering the Ukrainian Government and Ukrainian people our full support. However, I would add that cyber is a challenge that is being met and felt not just by the Ukrainian people; we have felt it right here in the UK as well.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Will my noble friend keep reminding his colleagues that Russia is in some senses half an Asian nation as well as a European one, and that we need not only a united NATO, which I think we are moving towards, but the strong and full financial and commercial engagement of the great powers of Asia to establish the pariah status of Russia in Mr Putin’s mind?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend and can assure him that, later today, I will host a meeting with the ambassadors of the UN Security Council members in the Court of St James. It is important that we see unity. Of course, we fully expect any resolution to be vetoed by Russia in the Security Council, but there will be further debates in the General Assembly in which we will look to show the maximum level of support across all nations.

The other thing that is often forgotten is the point made by my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary: around 1/16 of Russia’s border faces countries that are members of the NATO alliance. So we need to put this into context and perspective as well.

Autocrats, Kleptocrats and Populists

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on mounting this debate. He has been absolutely tireless in promoting more international co-operation and co-ordination on all the really existential issues threatening the world in an extremely dangerous time for us all. This debate is a marvellous further step in that direction.

I also agree with my noble friend Lord Balfe that we need to start on this question of defeating the autocracies by looking at and repairing our own weaknesses in democracy. I agree with most of what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said on the same theme. I think I was a bit naive in agreeing with my noble friend Lord Balfe that there was going to be a non-partisan approach to these totally new issues, but I am afraid that was soon disabused. Maybe my naivety will have to be put aside.

We have to know what the weaknesses in the democratic pattern are in this digital age. About a year ago, the Cambridge Centre for the Future of Democracy produced an extensive and extremely alarming report examining the views of millennials and Generation X—the people born after 1990—who, by a large majority, delivered the view that they were losing faith in democracy. I think it was rather a general question. They did not really mean that they were against democracy; what they meant was that the systems of democracy that are around are not delivering for these people in the way that perhaps they did for my generation and those in between.

I therefore think we have to be ready to move outside the old western camp view of thinking and maybe search into Asia where, frankly, all the great growth, all the booming economies and possibly all the biggest dangers will be over the next 10 or 20 years, and see what additional lessons we can learn in a world that is no longer ideological in the old Cold War language, with neat ideological divides between the systems and so on. I do not think the world is at all like the sort of thing that George Soros was wrongly stating the other day, with two economic systems lined up against each other. The reality is that the economic, social and therefore political mixtures ahead, in all continents, will turn out to conform neither to the isms of the past nor to the clichés of 20th-century European political discourse.

Just as what we continue to call democracy in the West seems to many people not very democratic at all, so what the Chinese, for instance, call socialism is really not very socialist either. Wise leaders should avoid attaching the old ideological labels to either of these models and recognise instead that revolutionary technology has fundamentally changed the behaviour of individuals to one another, of businesses to one another, of economies and of nations. A new kind of populist connectivity is pushing its way through just about everywhere, regardless of the doctrines and labels to which officials continue to cling.

I was particularly supportive of the concept advanced by the Foreign Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, when she talked about the need for understanding the world in terms of networks, and in particular a “network of liberty” of like-minded countries broadly dedicated—not always succeeding—to democratic values in lining up a security and defence chain, as it were, against the outright flouters of democracy, which are obviously to be found in Moscow and Beijing. This is the new pattern, which I think we have to apply our minds to.

I would like to see a prize awarded to the genius in the vanguard of thinking who can come up with a new language to explain to, inspire and guide confused millennials and the younger generation just about everywhere. Just as our forefathers invented the words “capitalism” and “socialism” only a couple of centuries ago to describe the new industrial world emerging, so we need the same inventiveness to describe the digital world that has replaced it. It is a challenge for thinkers and leaders in both East and West.

Middle East: Human Rights

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Anelay is entirely right to raise the question of promoting human rights. It is a great cause, but does the Minister agree that along with rights go responsibilities? Will he accept that if these countries are to join properly in the comity of nations and gain our respect, they not only have to improve their own human rights record but have to stand up internationally and vocally for the rule of law and speak out in flagrant breaches of the rule of law—particularly as we now see being proposed by President Putin around the borders of Ukraine?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has always believed that reform will be the guarantor of longer-term stability in the region—that we are more likely to bring about change through engagement, dialogue and co-operation. However, of course my noble friend is absolutely right to say that with the rights enjoyed by these countries come enormous responsibilities.

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will be aware, we have taken direct action in the sense of having officials who have visited Kabul continuing to engage at official level on these very priorities that she listed: humanitarian support and aid distribution within Afghanistan. Earlier this morning, I met Sir Simon Gass, who is one special representative among others. We are also looking forward to others engaging directly with the Taliban operationally. On the specifics, I assure the noble Baroness that we are working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN commission directly on the ground, as well as UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the ICRC, all of which have operational agreements and arrangements in each state to ensure effective distribution. There are others such as the Aga Khan Development Network, which has assured me through direct meetings that all its facilities—including support for the population, such as health clinics—are fully operational.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, is this not a situation where we are going to have to work closely and carefully with the Chinese? They seem to be acceptable to the Taliban and are working closely with them. The Chinese are always talking about the win-win nature of their intervention, which I think we have to take with a pinch of salt, but there is no doubt that they have the resources. They are there and they have substantial volumes of aid ready to bring in, and we have the humanitarian skills. Maybe this is an area where, despite all our very extensive differences with them in other areas, we might have to work together to get results.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, there are often challenges to the multilateral agencies working on the ground, particularly the United Nations. It is crises such as the Afghanistan crisis which really show the best of the world and how we can come together in response to humanitarian crisis. The UN provides the umbrella whereby we can work with all international partners, including China as well as others, to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those who most need it.

Russia

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the Foreign Secretary made a very eloquent comment the other day about a “network of liberty” being necessary to contain, curb and undermine the authoritarian regimes. Can the Minister explain how, over and above the obvious NATO alliance, this concept can be developed in relation to Ukraine? Does he agree that the really important message to get into the public debate and the Russian debate is that invading Ukraine will do neither the Russian people nor their leaders the slightest good in terms of prosperity or security, whereas the path to diplomacy might bring considerable benefits for Russia, including maybe a more peaceful old age for Vladimir Putin, and freedom to write his memoirs in peace?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

It may well be that Mr Putin’s memoirs are some way off at the moment, but I totally agree with my noble friend, and that is why it is right that the United Kingdom stand squarely behind the efforts of the United States. Obviously, we will be joining in further discussions, both through NATO and the OSCE, to ensure that diplomacy is given priority; it must be the way forward. Equally, I agree with my noble friend that it is in the interests of not just Russia and Ukraine or, indeed, other parties, but the world that there be a diplomatic solution to the current crisis.

International Day of Democracy

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord. It is vital that we stand with democracies, particularly fragile or infant ones around the world, to see how best we can support them. The noble Lord talks about Zambia, and of course we have worked very closely with other key partners in ensuring that democracy not only prevails but is sustained. Indeed, there are notable achievements; most recently, for example, further afield in Africa, in Sudan, the continuing lobbying has resulted in a sense of the restoration of the legitimate Government—but you can never take your eye of the ball, and the noble Lord makes some very valid points.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

The network of liberty is an extremely powerful concept, but does it not exist to some extent already? Is not the growing Commonwealth co-operation on security and defence, which is developing all the time, already part of that network—and is it not an important part of the future story?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Anelay and I had a brief discussion on this very question about 24 hours ago. The United Kingdom has been over time a strong beacon in supporting democracy around the world, and the Commonwealth network is a huge example of how we strengthen democracies and human rights.

Climate Change: COP 26

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, Alok Sharma deserves very high praise for the many deals and agreements he achieved in important areas such as trees and methane. It is obvious, particularly from the speech we have just heard, that Glasgow was a fountain of fascinating new ideas, all to be developed.

Nevertheless, we are now in fact entering an extremely dangerous phase in which people, especially the young, are being deluded into believing that climate violence and greatly increased volatility in price and supply over the coming era can all somehow be averted or much ameliorated by net-zero policies that will cost little and cause minimum upheaval. This is 100% wrong and utterly misleading. In practice, the enormous world energy transition now being contemplated will cause huge disruption and bring massive social, industrial and political change—like the Industrial Revolution but on a vastly greater scale and costing trillions, not billions.

For a start, there is the sheer and complete impracticality of re-engineering the entire power and electricity systems of India, China, Africa and other countries, closing down and totally replacing their countless coal-fired and other fossil-fuel stations—which my noble friend Lord Tugendhat has just referred to—and transforming, in short order, the complex coal, oil and gas fuel mix that has dominated the world for the past two centuries. Not only can this not be done without intense human suffering or within the alleged timescale but just hand-wringing and promising not to finance any new coal-fired power stations does not begin to touch the rising emissions problem that is sitting before us.

The only way of doing so would be to go out to each one of the thousands of coal-fired stations across Asia and around the world and retrofit them with affordable carbon-capture devices—which, incidentally, are yet to be invented—and modern supercritical boilers. This is possible, but the funds required to do it, including not just the equipment but the technology, training and skilled manpower to do the fitting, exceed by a factor of at least 10 anything now being publicly admitted or any of the sums being talked about.

Actually, if aiding the most vulnerable and defenceless in our societies and easing human suffering were the real and genuine purpose, would we be going this way at all? By far the best use of funds and the most genuinely caring and compassionate route would be massive adaptation to protect people better against the inevitable periods ahead—who knows for how long —of climate violence, floods, storms, fires and heat waves, which are, historically, now due anyway.

Although, as we have been reminded, we should care deeply for the small island states, this is a direct threat to our own islands, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, quite rightly began this debate by reminding us. We should tackle the protection and adaptation task with the intensity that the Dutch showed five centuries ago, only now at 100 times the scale.

The management of this transition, phase by phase, will require the utmost skill and intricate strategic energy planning. Without this and proper back-up, we will run into terrible price spikes, causing intense hardship for the most vulnerable and the defenceless, just as we are doing at this moment, although we do not seem to have touched on it much in this debate. Of course, it will also cause real insecurity and power shortages. We can have as many conferences as we like, but it is time for some honesty, realism and real action to prepare and protect our environment, our energy security and the younger generations’ real interests, prosperity and safety.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Like the noble Lord, I recognise the commitment and huge sacrifice that has been shown by Mr Ratcliffe and the families of other British detainees in seeking the release and return of their loved ones detained in Iran. We continue to call on Iran to end Nazanin’s suffering immediately and to allow her to return home to her family in the UK. But I need to be clear, in the place of my colleague and noble friend Lord Ahmad, who is not here to answer the Question, that the UK does not and never will accept our dual nationals being used as diplomatic leverage. Our priority is securing Nazanin’s immediate release so that she can be reunited with her family.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

While it is absolutely right that the dreadful detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe should be kept totally separate from other issues in the relationship with the Iranian Government, will my noble friend explain the delays in the payment of the proper debt for the Chieftain tanks that were never delivered? It seems to me a straightforward matter, entirely separate from this horrible detention issue, which surely could be settled, and settled fast. Can he explain what the delay is because we do not understand?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

As we have said—I know my colleague has said this many times from this Dispatch Box—we are actively exploring the options to resolve this case, but it is not helpful in any way to connect wider bilateral issues with those arbitrarily detained in Iran. It remains in Iran’s gift to do the right thing and to allow British dual nationals home to be reunited with their families.