North-west Syria

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As a general point, one of the things that we are concerned about doing is giving support to refugees who have fled Syria, and we are working with all neighbouring countries. I do not have a specific response on Armenia, but I have taken the noble Lord’s point and will certainly raise it in the department. As a general principle, we are very concerned to ensure that those fleeing the conflict are properly supported in neighbouring countries.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, we need to remember that Bashar al-Assad has been kept in power by Russia to do all his dreadful, bloody work over 20 years or thereabouts. I am not quite sure where HTS comes from or what its stance is as it sweeps down from Aleppo, but we need to remember that Kissinger once remarked that there are many situations where one rather wishes both sides could lose—and I am afraid that this may be one of them.

More broadly, these situations arise again and again, and there will be many more in this high-tension area, where everything is amplified by the digital age and hyper-connectivity and where the bloodshed seems to increase all the time. Each time, we issue Statements, we talk with our allies, we wring our hands a bit and we go to the United Nations and have a good chat. Then, somehow, the situation slides on away from us, which is extraordinary, because 20 years ago we thought that democracy was winning everywhere, but now it seems to be sliding away. Are we really using all the modern communications technology, of the kind that the Chinese in particular use with great effect, to maintain the case against bloodshed, killing and Russian troublemaking and the case for democracy, balance and a sensible commitment to a degree of freedom and the rule of law? Our story needs to be brushed up a great deal.

Are we making full use of the Commonwealth of 56 Nations, although I understand that there are soon to be rather more than that? Are we making enough use of our UN representations, with the desperate need for UN reform at every level, despite having Russia and China sitting in there like cuckoos in the nest? This is a world in which the medium is the message 10 times over. It needs a constant and new story to be developed. I ask that we think of that and do not just assume that, having issued a Statement and talked to a few of our allies, there is nothing more we can do.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I absolutely share the noble Lord’s views about our values and how we can restate them. I attended the whole of the United Nations General Assembly, including many events where we engaged with civil society. Our policies should not be just about Government-to-Government relationships, and that is why the noble Lord is absolutely right about the Commonwealth. It is a commonwealth family as well as a commonwealth of peoples. The Commonwealth institutes great people-to-people and parliamentary contact, which restates the importance of democracy.

We also translate our policies through soft power, a term that I do not particularly like. Through the BBC World Service and other means, we are using greater, more effective communication tools and ensuring that we counter what the Russians are doing. It is important that we see the value of that sort of people-to-people communication.

I restate the position on Syria that I said earlier: we are supporting the United Nations Resolution 2354 and a political process that engages as many groups as possible. It is a political process; this is not a war that can be won by conflict. This situation can be resolved only by political dialogue and we urge all parties to engage in that.

G20 and COP 29 Summits

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am happy to give a very quick answer to the noble Baroness: yes, they are.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

It was a comprehensive Statement, but it included wording about

“a 2035 target to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% on 1990 levels”.

I know a clean energy mission is coming and we will learn the details there, but could the noble Baroness just explain how that squares with the aim of decarbonising all power by 2030 and an all-electric economy—or is that by 2035? Some of us are getting a bit confused with this and other developments. If we could just know roughly where we are going and whether these things are remotely attainable, that would help.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Targets are there to be attained and reached, and every effort is being made. The difference is that 2030 is the national target; 2035 is the international agreement reached at the summits. I hope that is helpful.

Command Paper Safeguarding the Union

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord supported Brexit at the time, and he will be aware that the way in which Brexit was undertaken brought with it enormous constitutional implications. We have always sought to safeguard the position of Northern Ireland in the UK and in the internal market, but he will understand the pressures on business. We will do all we can to reduce those pressures to make it as stable as possible. Northern Ireland is an integral part of the UK, and the internal market is an important part that we will do everything we can to safeguard.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that, even since the publication of this report last January, there has been considerable and important new thinking on trade facilitation of all kinds, particularly within the United Kingdom? Will she assure us that the report published today by the Trade Facilitation Commission, which contains many of these ideas, is taken full account of by the independent monitoring group or whoever is going to be driving this pattern forward?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the most important thing here is to safeguard the trading position and the internal market. When ideas, suggestions and reports come forward, of course they will all get the due consideration that they deserve in the best interests of the Northern Ireland.

House of Lords: Composition

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Again, the noble Lord’s ingenuity is always impressive. He knows that that is not the case. He also knows that the Labour Party manifesto at the last election was the only one I have seen in recent years that praised the work of this House—we continue to do so—and recognised the valuable work that it has done. In my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I said that one of the important things in this House is incremental reform. As I have said before—I think the noble Lord was present when this was repeated at least twice in debate on the King’s Speech—the House will be consulted on the manifesto commitments on retirement age and participation.

The manifesto also talked about immediate actions on particular issues. The other commitments of course remain, and they will come forward in due course, after discussions and dialogue across the House.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, although the Minister is very good on these matters, she does not quite seem to understand that her party is dabbling with constitutional reform. Surely she, among many others, agrees that when it comes to constitutional reform it is absolutely essential that there is agreement between all parties, otherwise we spend years and years in useless argument, getting nowhere. Does the noble Baroness not accept on this issue, as she has just learned from some of the responses she has just had, that once you touch on constitutional issues, the time has come to try to work out a common way forward—the future common ground—in a sensible, mature and adult way, and not get lost in party ding-dong?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord is being a little patronising in saying that I do not understand constitutional issues. I will be happy to reach consensus, where it is possible. As the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said, a quarter of a century ago there was eventually a consensus that transitional arrangements would be made for the remaining hereditary Peers.

Action Against Houthi Maritime Attacks

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is surely obvious to everyone—at least, I hope it is—that the Iranians are completely behind all these Houthi operations, with their advisers crawling all over northern Yemen and Sanaa. Indeed, some of their advisers may be actively helping to launch the rockets. It is pretty obvious that the motive is that they want to assert, against the opinion of the Saudis and others, that they are the top dogs in the region. I do not think they want escalation—otherwise, they would have given the green light to their Hezbollah friends, which they have not done—but they are very determined to show that they are the leaders in the axis of resistance, looking east.

In light of that, what moves does my noble friend suggest that we can take now to contribute more effectively? That could be either through stronger sanctions than those that came into action last December or by working in closer alliance with other powers in the Middle East. How can we build up and contribute to that kind of pressure and bring even more clearly to the attention of the world stage the fact that this is a murderous regime that is highly unstable internally and well in a position to be surrounded and not cowed to in any way?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend quite rightly stresses the importance of the role of the Iranian Government and the Iranian regime. One must not forget that, looking at the whole span of human history back to ancient times, Iran has been a vital and greatly civilised place in the world, and it will always be a powerful force in that region, whatever the circumstances. However, it is incumbent on people who have authority, power and strength to use them with wisdom and for specific and constructive purposes. That is not, as my noble friend said, what the Iranian regime is doing at all; it is doing the reverse and is responsible for a lot of the instability in the region, including in relation to the Houthis. We have made it clear to Iran that we view it as bearing responsibility for the actions of these groups. We will continue to discuss with allies what the appropriate further actions on Iran may be.

Parliamentary Democracy and Standards in Public Life

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I will concentrate on the parliamentary democracy side of our debate, since others have eloquently put the obvious point that, unless we maintain the highest standards of behaviour in Parliament and ensure that Parliament itself upholds these standards, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, rightly reminded us, no one will renew the much-diminished trust in and respect for parliamentary institutions today, whatever the circumstances.

For a gloomy and very serious subject, this has been quite an enjoyable debate so far. Everyone knows that we are facing an age of disorder and potential disintegration, but my worry is that far too few people in practising politics, the media or the so-called influencer class, whoever they are, recognise the causes or consequences of just drifting along on the technological tide. Some people are now calling for something akin to a new Enlightenment, with the philosophers stepping forward where the politicians and parties are so obviously and clearly failing to make an impact, or merely trading stale abuse and accusations while the world rolls away from them and us.

All aspects of this scene are in a state of flux. All pave the way for multiplying grievances, for placard politics in place of argument, for dissent shading into hate and for unrepresentative democracy to worm its way in. All these trends are already being fundamentally twisted in new directions by the communications revolution, the loss of deliberation in the immediacy of online response, the ugly intolerance of polarisation, the demands of uninhibited transparency and the general evaporation of trust in and respect for everyone and everything. If we add in a new universal balloon of fakery and misinformation, now being further inflated by the misuse of AI, that makes it all the worse.

I have only two immediate answers to this fragile and dangerous situation in the few minutes that I have to speak. The first is to take our parliamentary committee structure far more seriously if we want to keep pace with and get to the bottom of ever-swelling executive activity. That requires our committees to be properly resourced and empowered, as they are in many other democracies but not here. The second is to give maximum encouragement and space to deep channels of discussion throughout the UK, often far from the public gaze and well away from the media, where new thoughts may be taking shape.

Whoever forms a Government at Westminster, most of the major issues of our time are well outside the control of our national government. The levers of growth which are believed to exist—I believe that Sir Keir Starmer believes in them—are now in practice outside the state’s diminished reach, as it tries to do more and more but with less success. If that reality alone is grasped by Parliament and its leaders, then order and a mannered public debate can continue to be combined with freedom of thought, speech and ambition for our institutions and constitution—and, above all, with trust, which is so obviously missing from the whole parliamentary and political scene.

Long-Term Strategic Challenges Posed by China

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard some very interesting, excellent and clear speeches so far in this debate, starting with my noble friend the Minister. It is particularly a pleasure to follow the speech we have just heard from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup.

The truth is that our relationship with China gets discussed almost everywhere on a whole spectrum of attitudes. At one extreme, we have those who say, “Stop worrying: do not get overly hysterical” and take a relaxed view that there is nothing much to be done—China is China, just carry on and it will rise and fall, and maybe rise again in the way things do in history. At another extreme, we have the “China is the enemy brigade” in line with the hard-line Manichean view held by some people in America like Mr Pompeo in the Trump Administration. It is an almost McCarthyite attitude that says China is going all-out to undermine and destroy everything around us, there are Chinese under every bed, and Chinese sympathisers must be hunted out and denounced.

Midway between these two extremes we have the UK official position, set out very closely by the noble Earl, as stated in the latest “refresh” version of the Downing Street integrated review—and I am afraid, with the way things are going, we are going to need another one quite soon, as events move so fast on this planet.

That one states, as my noble friend said, that China poses an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge” and calls for the three items that my noble friend mentioned: protection, which is safeguarding our critical national infrastructure and supply lines; alignment, which means working with everybody else to contain Chinese activities around the world; and engagement in varying degrees, which means creating space for a positive trade and investment relationship. All that sounds really quite sensible as far as it goes, but I believe—I am with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, here—that even this position, let alone the extreme stances described, is not really clever or subtle enough to deal with the phenomenon of today’s China.

I would argue that some deeper approaches are needed, which I will comment on. I first give a few facts. I begin with climate issues, which my noble friend on the Front Bench referenced. Even though China is an enormous investor in renewables—maybe the world’s biggest—its coal burning for electricity is currently around 1,000 gigawatts, which is about 58% of all its electric power. This is down from 80% but, with a recent surge of new coal-fired plants—with 45 being built or revived and 52 more planned—it is rising again. To put things into perspective, it now ends up at about 1,000 times our small, residual coal burn in this country. Together with India’s 250 gigawatts of coal plants and America at a little less, those three countries account for over 60% of rising world emissions. There is absolutely no hope of curbing climate violence, however zealous we are with our own net zero, unless these soaring emissions are somehow reversed. That is where full co-operation, and the full focus of our contribution to the battle, should be directed if we are serious about climate change.

Sometimes it seems that, with all our concentration directed inwards to achieving our very worthy net-zero goal, we forget the main aim, which is to curb world emissions and to head off the worst climate violence and planetary destruction. Sometimes I even sympathise a bit with Greta Thunberg, not her latest escapade with trying to stop oil now, which would of course cause huge world suffering and disruption for the poorest, but her more general fear that the next generation will feel completely betrayed. I do not see that the worthy but costly net zero here will make the slightest difference to the frightening rise in world emissions carrying on now. The UK is not making anything like the best and most focused contribution that it could to checking global warming, and that has strong implications for our relations with China.

Secondly, we must face the fact that, for all the rhetoric about China around the western world, trade with China is still extremely high and is growing in most areas. For the EU, it is back up to £450 billion for the last 12 months, and cheap electric vehicles are about to flood into the European system, to the alarm of the entire European motor industry. Then there is security. Obviously, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup said, Taiwan is there. The question is whether the Israel horror, coming on top of the Afghanistan withdrawal model, will tempt Xi to go earlier. Most people say that he will delay for a while, but I am not so sure. He must be looking at the situation again and wondering. I also wonder whether our eye is on the ball as China hoovers up the developing world and quite a lot of members of the Commonwealth with it. Let us keep our Five Eyes assembly, which we have just seen gather in a rather encouraging way, fully alert and supported. Whitehall seems to think that a lot of smaller islands in the South Seas and the Caribbean are too small or remote to be strategically important. But the Chinese foreign policy strategists think quite the opposite: the control of maritime routes and the so-called assistance to these small countries with policing, training and, indeed, even weapons and military advice is a crucial part of the strategic game of the world.

As for the heavy hand in Hong Kong and the appalling persecution of the Uighurs, I know that the speaker coming after me will explain with his usual perception and accuracy just what is happening. I hope we can somehow influence and delay the crushing of Hong Kong’s freedoms. It is China that will be the loser. Hong Kong was an enormously valuable asset to China in its full heyday and even now could be if China played things very differently.

As for the Chinese economy, it is a mixed picture. It all looked very good for China earlier this year. It appeared to be recovering from the Covid drama, but investment is plummeting and so is consumer demand. We now see in China slower growth; soaring debt; attempted, but of course resisted, capital flight; massive youth unemployment; a shrinking population; what is called economic long Covid; and a distinct alienation of China’s friends, thanks to the general aggressiveness of Xi Jinping’s stance. The belt and road initiative, which has been mentioned, is running up a lot of debts.

My advice would be in some respect the very opposite of that of the blinkered Sinophobes and hardliners who seem to want us to cut off all links with and somehow cancel China. We should not only engage but bring it all on. We should not only ensure that we do not cut off China but actively welcome Chinese capital, students, technology and brands. That would in fact weaken and undermine Xi’s imperial ambitions. The sensitive sectors should of course be protected, and we are going to do that, but much of Chinese intellectual property theft comes from cybercrime and espionage, some of which is very naive and childish.

Our story, under the rule of law and in freedom, is a lot better than the Chinese story. It should be told to the world with much more vigour and elan. The Chinese information flow, designed to undermine our values and our democracy, is formidably good and effective at reaching the free world and all the non-aligned countries, which is most countries now. I hope, but of course do not know, that ours is just as good in somehow reaching the Chinese on the dangers for China itself if it persists in stepping outside the comity of nations, flouting international law and disdaining the alliance of civilised nations against the coming dangers that threaten us all, of which the bestiality and bottomless evil of 7 October by the Hamas butchers is the most vivid example. The powerful attraction of an open society, draining capital out of China—as one commentator put it, “suction, not sanctions”—is the best way to weaken Chinese dominance and benefit us at the same time. It is the path we should follow.

Israel and Gaza

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord True (Con)]

I am not sure that I can be whipping the House as well. There is time for all Benches to be heard and I think the noble Baroness was possibly up first—but let us get on, because time is going by.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

We have only three and a half more minutes. Can people be as quick as they can with their questions?

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, after that fine prayer, I have just one question. While it is clear that the Hamas butchers should be hunted down for their revolting crimes against humanity and made to pay for them, and while we somehow have to get out those hostages who have not been executed in cold blood by Hamas in the meantime, does the Minister agree that minds should begin to turn, for the longer term, to revisiting the two-state process and combining it with the best features of the Oslo accords and the Abraham accords, into which great thought was put? In the future, they are the key to Israel’s sustainability, survivability and the stability of the whole region.

[Lord True (Con)]

I agree with that. I said in the Statement that the Government’s position is that we should return to seek the two-state solution, and ultimately seek the way of peace. The way of terror is the way of death.

G20 Summit

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement and I am grateful to my noble friend for repeating it. Obviously, I associate myself with the sympathies expressed over the horrific earthquake in the Atlas mountains and the need to rally round and support Morocco, which will be an increasingly important country for our own relationships in the coming decades.

I would have liked to hear a slightly tougher line come out on Ukraine, as I think we all would. Clearly, more persuasion is required to establish that we are not talking just about ideology, West and East and all those out-of-date concepts. We are talking about a direct, criminal assault on humanity and the stable world order. The sooner that message is established everywhere, regardless of trade or past connections, the better for bringing Russia to book.

One omission did surprise me; in fact, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned it and my noble friend also made some comments. It is on the accession of the African Union—all 55 countries—to the G20. This is an enormous change. If they all turn up, it will completely swamp the G20; even if just their secretariat and leadership turn up, this really does remind us of the change in the world balance of power, prosperity and development in the future.

Africa is heading for a population of 1 billion within this century. What is happening in Africa and India makes them increasingly the pivots and central points in the balance of world development, and between the attempted hegemonies of China to overthrow the world order of the last 50 years and the kind of balance we would like to see here in Britain, which is one of independence for more and more countries as they face the problems of the future.

It is also worth remembering that 21 of those 55 countries are members of the Commonwealth. As I said, I am quite surprised that more was not made of this in the Statement itself. I do not know whether my noble friend the Minister would like to comment a little further, but this is where our interests will be increasingly focused and where the new priorities in our foreign policy need to be sharpened up; so, I would welcome perhaps a little more on how the African Union fits into this completely changed world scene, but I thank the Minister all the same for making the Statement.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend, whose expertise and dedication to these issues we all recognise. I fear that it is a few years, perhaps decades, since I had a hand in the drafting of prime ministerial Statements, so I cannot comment on the selection of material, but I can certainly say that the Government and the Prime Minister, all of us, do support and welcome this. It is something that was negotiated with the positive support and promotion—with other nations—of the United Kingdom.

It is absolutely vital that we make progress with relations and support for Africa. The UK is one of the largest supporters of the World Food Programme. We provided over £330 million of funding in 2022, including to Africa. Trade should also be a force for good. In Africa it is a remarkable and welcome thing that 98% of goods imported to the UK from Africa will enter tariff-free. These are things we must continue. We have £3.4 billion of green investments in Kenya, for example. I can certainly undertake to the noble Lord that the Government are very much seized of the importance of that great continent—the continent of the future.

As far as Russia is concerned, I did allude to the difficulties of agreeing. For 20 nations to agree words is often a diplomatic task, but it is fundamental—a point that I made in my initial response—that all G20 members, including actually Russia, committed in the declaration to a

“comprehensive, just, and durable peace in Ukraine that will uphold all the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter”.

That is something that President Zelensky asked for last year at the Bali summit, and something that we will advance. If you think about it, Lavrov was there—Russia was at the G20 and under the terms of the declaration Russia has told the leaders of the biggest global economies that it will uphold all the principles of the UN Charter and refrain from the use of force for territorial acquisition. Unless Putin withdraws his troops, he will have lied to the world—perhaps not for the first time.

G7 Summit

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, many issues were covered in the G7 and in the Statement. Does my noble friend the Minister care to reflect on one of them, which is mentioned only briefly in the Statement: the huge importance of Japan to our future prosperity and defence? Japan is the third industrial power in the world and, in fact, much richer than China in second. Statistically, it is enormously active. It has been a massive investor in this country in the past, and I believe it can be again.

Is it not important to remind ourselves that, through closeness with Japan in dealing with security issues—the recent agreements, the building of combat aircraft for the future and the whole range of innovations—this is a nation with which we should stay extremely close? We should reflect on and remember that in our future policies. I declare an interest as an adviser to a number of Japanese companies. Does my noble friend the Minister acknowledge that Japan and Britain can again be, as they have been in the past, very important partners?

[Lord True (Con)]

I strongly agree with my noble friend. Indeed, I pay the most fulsome tribute to the Japanese Prime Minister for the conduct of the G7 discussions. To repeat what I said, the depth of the agreements between the UK and Japan is reflected in the historic Hiroshima accord—the new agreements on defence, trade, investment, science and technology collaboration, and tackling global issues such as climate change. These are hugely important. There is the new UK-Japanese defence co-operation; the new cyber partnership; a set of science and technology programmes we will work on together; the semiconductors partnership that my noble friend mentioned; and a renewable energy partnership, which I think should delight the noble Lord, Lord Newby, aimed at accelerating the deployment of clean energy in the UK, Japan and third countries. It was extremely positive. The Prime Minister has reflected the warmth of the feeling that he has towards Japan; I think he felt that was strongly reciprocated by the G7 hosts, and we are very grateful for that.