Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2018

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad indeed to hear the resolute terms in which the order has been brought forward.

It is very important to remember just how brutal and horrible the murder was and how it was deliberately arranged in a way that would send a message to dissenters and others in Russia itself. From that standpoint, I think that this issue, quite apart from its legal rectitude, has important political significance in terms of our relationship with Russia. I could not agree more with the noble Baroness about the widow, who is an absolutely delightful woman and has come through this remarkably well. It must have been sheer, undiluted hell to see her husband dying in that way. The only way that the present regime in Russia gets messages is by being tough. Any tendency to rationalise or prevaricate on the issue would be disastrous; that is wrong.

I want to make one other point, quite apart from the victim himself. Two weeks before this happened, I heard him speak at a meeting in London, in which he was outspoken in his criticism of the cold-blooded brutality of the regime. He was a very courageous man, standing by the very principles we like to claim as central to our society. My point is this: do we really let agents of a regime like that travel around London trailing radioactivity with impunity? Where are they going? At the time, I found it astounding that they were just wandering round London and leaving trails of radioactivity. This is a very serious case indeed, with the most important issues behind it. I therefore do nothing but commend the Government on the resolute terms in which they have brought the statutory instrument forward.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this order but I think it would be helpful to the House if the Minister could tell us how many persons are subject to orders similar to this one and what the approximate total of the now-frozen assets is. I apologise to him for not warning him of these two points but I hope he can deal with them.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, we on these Benches accept and believe that the order is an appropriate, commensurate and proportionate response in relation to the specified persons. In coming to that conclusion, we have of course looked at the order with care. I also looked up the time when the first order was initiated—two years ago—only to discover that I was in fact the Opposition spokesman then. Time has not changed much.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, answered all my questions at that time, except one. I quote him:

“As the noble Lord may know, Mrs Litvinenko’s lawyers provided a list of people who she felt should have further action taken against them. Some are members of the Russian authorities who are already under sanctions relating to Crimea and activities in Ukraine. The rest of the list is being considered by the Home Secretary, but so far no action has been decided upon”.—[Official Report, 10/2/16; col. GC 228.]


Has any further action been decided upon for individuals on that list?

Israel and Palestine

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, the politics of humanity demand the ending of the blockade of Gaza, the phasing out of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and fair access for all the world to the holy places of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Of course, Israel’s security is critical, but it cannot trump the interests of peace. Security can be handled by many techniques and by disarmament, but above all by local and regional agreements. Funds pledged for Gaza must be paid up. This is urgent to prevent children dying from a poor diet and cold and wet conditions. Life-saving repairs must be done now.

We have the right to demand that Israel ceases collective punishments and all illegal acts. Keeping international law will earn respect for Israel, and build confidence for two-state and wider agreements. This would benefit the whole of the Middle East and the Islamic world. Recognising the notional Palestinian state would be a step towards two full states before it is too late. Peace must prevail. Our Government should stop balancing interests and help all sides to behave humanely. Palestine deserves the complete self-determination that Israel has enjoyed for so long.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hylton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for strengthening the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to strengthening the capacities of the OSCE, particularly in relation to its crucial role in the Ukraine crisis. In 2014, the UK has been among the largest contributors to the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, providing more than £3 million-worth of funding and equipment and seconding more than 20 UK nationals. Additionally, more than 170 UK election observers joined the two OSCE observation missions in Ukraine this year.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for concentrating his reply on Ukraine. Would he agree that violations of the ceasefire and the presence of Russian military equipment and personnel, as well as the devastation of civilian areas and the onset of winter and diseases, all make the case for strengthening the OSCE’s mandate and personnel in the field?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, at the Basel ministerial meeting of the OSCE last week, Russia was supported only by Belarus in resisting precisely the proposals that the noble Lord has just made.

Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this debate because it gives me a chance to mention proposals for conflict prevention in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, and to explain a new vision for the Mediterranean region. All three will, I trust, help to forestall conflict and acute suffering.

I know from my own family experience how deeply divided society in Northern Ireland still is. There are visible signs of this in most towns and cities. Power-sharing institutions struggle to work smoothly. For these reasons there is a proposal for a professionally assisted conflict analysis process to sit alongside political negotiations, or perhaps to follow them. It would examine causes rather than symptoms of division. The process could go on to look at the needs of the segments of society, including their identity needs and shared needs. This concept has been put to the Secretary of State and to the First Ministers, but so far without response.

In Bosnia, the proposal is to form a wide coalition to foster a national dialogue on the country’s future. This might be facilitated by an independent third party called the Soul of Europe. This English charity, in which I declare an interest as patron, has already helped Bosnia over the rebuilding of a world-famous Ottoman mosque and a war memorial in the former Omarska concentration camp. A very committed Bosnian has stated:

“We need help, but in a way that enables our citizens to be heard”.

He went on:

“The people of this country really want to move towards the European Union”.

This aim may be frustrated by the present dysfunctional constitution—no doubt, the only one that could be agreed at the Dayton conference in 1995. The layers of government and bureaucracy now hold up economic development and the common good. A national dialogue would, I hope, point the way ahead while respecting all minority voices. Civil society is demanding change. As the Bishop of Banja Luka has said, people want a new way of organising the state. The external costs of a national dialogue would be of the order of £30,000 for one year. That is a tiny sum compared with the cost of flood defences or the cost of a possible renewed conflict of a violent nature. I mentioned this proposal in your Lordships’ House on 21 October at cols. 612-13 of the Official Report.

I turn now to the Mediterranean. On the north side, there is high unemployment, from Portugal across to Greece, especially among young people. The same is true on the south side, from Morocco to Syria and Iraq. Refugees and migrant workers from the Sahel and the Horn of Africa make the situation even worse. We have seen how thousands lose their lives trying to cross the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea. Surely we need a new deal for the region, one that would cope with the bulging young generations in north Africa and the Middle East. These are the people who lack jobs, careers and the prospect of being able to marry. In frustration, they may well become jihadis. I am told that 3,000 have already left Tunisia in order to fight.

The Barcelona Convention of 1995 tried to think constructively. It led to the Mediterranean action plan, which produced agreements on sea pollution, protecting the coast and exploring the continental shelf. This was all useful intergovernmental work, but I doubt that it fired the public imagination to any degree or created many jobs. I argue now that there is much more to be done by Governments to prevent human trafficking and loss of life. More still is needed by way of public/private partnership and investment, for example, in solar technology. Every city from Casablanca to Karachi should have its own Turquoise Mountain Foundation. That is a project initiated in Kabul by the honourable Member for Penrith and The Border. It has provided work skills for the young and helped to revive traditional crafts. I have seen projects in the Gulf emirates on information technology and social sustainability. These should be replicated much more widely. Oil and gas profits from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia could flow through their sovereign wealth funds into massive projects to widen the Suez Canal, for example, or to create a new regional hub in Gaza. The last could include an electricity generating ship, which has already been offered by Turkey, a Mulberry-type harbour and the desalination of water.

I call for moral imagination and political will. There should be fewer Shards of Glass and Cheesegraters in London and more investment north and south of the Mediterranean. Real human needs would thus be met, conflicts would be prevented and peace would have a better chance. People-to-people links should also be set up through sport, which has been mentioned, and exchanges of all kinds.

Will Her Majesty's Government be bold and take the initiative once more in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and the whole Mediterranean region? Will they explain the benefits of such far-sighted moves to our EU partners? Arabia, India, China and the United States also have interests in the kind of stability on which I hope we can all agree.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing the debate. In recent years, we have seen how closely foreign affairs and home affairs interact. For that reason, I strongly welcome the statement by 100 British Muslim imams against young men going to Syria, Iraq and other places for jihad. I trust the imams know of the work in Iraq, ever since the fall of Saddam, of Canon Andrew White. He has brought together the senior religious leaders of all traditions. Many participants in these meetings had never met each other before. The results were unprecedented: joint Shia-Sunni fatwas, first against suicide bombing and later against violence of any kind directed at minority groups. The high-level meetings were followed up by a series of local ones.

The congregation of St George’s church, Baghdad, which is technically Anglican and served by my friend, Canon White, contains people from every Christian tradition that ever existed in Iraq. Next to the church is a fully equipped, free medical clinic, serving all comers.

Despite the almost total exodus of Christians from the city of Mosul, which has been mentioned, I am glad to say that last Sunday there was a joint Christian-Muslim service in St George’s Catholic Chaldean church in or near Mosul. They celebrated their common Iraqi citizenship. Patriarch Sako was quoted as saying:

“I carry every Iraqi in my heart”.

The aforementioned exodus was caused by the so-called Islamic State. My other friend, Mr Yonadam Kanna, a long-serving member of the Iraqi Parliament, sadly reported that five Christian families in Mosul had been forced to convert to Islam because they were too old or too ill to flee.

In the last 100 years, the once-thriving Armenian and Jewish communities have been almost entirely driven out of Iraq. There are now only five or six Jews remaining. As my noble friend Lord Alton mentioned, Iraqi Christians once numbered about 1.5 million in 2003; today, they are reduced to perhaps 250,000. Many have been killed, while others fled to neighbouring states or, if possible, reached Britain, North America or Australia. Humanitarian support for all groups is now more needed than ever. That is why I greatly welcome the concern recently expressed by the Pope and the UN Secretary-General.

In the Middle East outside Iraq, violence in Palestine and Israel has led, I am sorry to say, to fall-out in Europe. I condemn as strongly as possible violence in France and Germany against Jews or anywhere against Muslims. Branding people unjustly as terrorists or scapegoating them because of their religious affiliation is wrong. It recalls the dehumanisation of the other that took place in Nazi Germany or in Rwanda and leads all too easily to genocide. There are no sub-humans. We have to discover and to respect each other’s God-given dignity, remembering that the blood in the veins of all is always red.

Do Her Majesty’s Government see Article 18 of the universal declaration as an important criterion for the selection of the next UN Secretary-General? If that person will not uphold freedom of conscience and faith, and freedom to change one’s religion, then who will?

What is the Government’s policy towards the 23 countries with laws on apostasy? Will they take up this matter with the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference? Will they bear in mind that so-called crimes of apostasy and blasphemy are often punishable by death? Many countries that have abolished or suspended capital punishment should be useful allies on this point. Everyone should know that freedom to choose and respect for diversity are both desirable in themselves and good for society.

Egypt: Human Rights

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I took part in two visits this year to Cairo by the all-party group. Egypt has had a deservedly bad press following shootings, mass trials and death sentences. I understand that civilians can still be tried before military courts for certain offences and that some 62,000 people are in prison, many of them facing very poor conditions. This week, the New York Times estimated that 15,000 of them are there for political reasons. Another source in April thought that 2,000 were in pre-trial detention.

As far as I know, there is no process for reviewing cases before they come to court. As a delegation, we met with the National Council for Human Rights. It appeared—certainly to me—that it lacks independence and real authority. Six journalists have been killed and 20 arrested. Five received long sentences after a questionable trial. I am glad that the Egyptian ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office following those verdicts. I note that media control has already failed in Tunis and may yet fail in Egypt.

There are other relevant points. Preachers in mosques will in future have to be licensed and qualified persons—a move intended to prevent extremists and rabble-rousers. Almost all the senior and middle-rank judges were appointed in the Mubarak era and may well have very conservative views. We were told that the Government were funding the rebuilding or repair of 27 churches, mainly Coptic Orthodox, that were destroyed or damaged.

I noted that Mr Amr Moussa, the veteran Minister and former Secretary-General of the Arab League, did not demonise the Muslim Brotherhood as others have done but suggested that the 50-member constitutional committee might have a continuing role in guiding the new Parliament that should be elected before the end of this year. The real test will be whether the Government actively promote common citizenship and equality of opportunity for all. One small and low-cost improvement would be to remove the obligation to show religious affiliation on a person’s identity card.

Given the anxieties of the Egyptian Government about the Libyan frontier and the Sinai peninsula, my fear is that the military will keep a harsh grip on events. Already the state owns a significant part of the media and the many-headed private and commercial media may well feel constrained to act with great caution. The outlook for freedom of expression may not be too bright. It would be good if there could be an independent investigation of the many violent deaths that occurred in 2013, of the alleged torture in prison and of police impunity.

I conclude by asking whether Her Majesty’s Government will combine maximum co-operation for the good of Egypt’s economy and for the benefit of its neighbours with a critical eye on all abuses of human rights, whether these occur against Egypt’s own citizens or they are suffered by refugees who found themselves in Egypt.

Syria: Peace Initiative

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree. I should also say that the British Foreign Secretary has worked extremely hard over the past nine months and more to come to terms with the Russians and to develop a relationship with the Russian Foreign Minister. The European Union high representative, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, has also done a great deal of work with the Russians on Syria and as part of the E3+3 on Iran.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome very much the first steps in restoring diplomatic relations with Iran and the Foreign Secretary’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart. Does the Minister agree that Iran can be enormously helpful in Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan, as well as in the other country mentioned by the right reverend Prelate? If there is progress on these fronts, would that not justify further steps in normalising our relations?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course it would. However, we are proceeding slowly and cautiously. There was an Iranian invasion of the British embassy compound only two years ago and we are conscious, as the Foreign Secretary said in his Statement to the Commons the other day, that the Iranian political system is a complex structure and that to be President of Iran is not necessarily to command all power in Iran. When President Rouhani returned most recently he was cheered in the streets of Tehran, but he was booed and his car was apparently pelted by members of the Basij militia.

Defence: Trident Review

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, is there not a contradiction between, on the one hand, the statements of successive British Governments about the weapons of mass destruction of others and the risk, therefore, of killing non-combatant civilians and, on the other hand, their own possession of nuclear missiles?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have no doubt that when the Trident alternatives review is published, it will stimulate a good deal of, I hope, informed and rational debate about the future of our nuclear weapons programme and of nuclear weapons as a whole. That was part of the intention of commissioning this review.

Syria

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, by its nature when a very localised civil war is under way, it is very difficult for any of us to control what the outcome will be. The only assurance that I, or any other international actor, can give is that Her Majesty’s Government are working with our allies and partners in the Middle East and attempting to persuade the Russian and Chinese Governments to work towards the achievement of a negotiated solution that would see a more inclusive Government replace the Assad regime.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, have the Government studied the recent proposal for transitional justice in Syria, put forward by the Syrian Support Group? If implemented, would it not have the effect of separating ordinary, innocent Alawis from the regime?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are a great many efforts under way to protect the Alawi minority, the Christian minority and the smaller number of Druze within Syria from what could easily deteriorate into a sectional jihad. We are all very worried about that possibility. A great deal of work is under way, quite a lot of it funded by DfID, to advise the Opposition about negotiated transition, rebuilding local communities and providing the basic services that people need to start the process of reconciliation.

Gaza

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I have visited Gaza twice in recent years and there can be no doubt that health is now the top priority. This turns on supplies of water, food, drugs and medical equipment. Also, it is essential that Israel should never delay, turn back or arrest the sick so that they die before reaching hospital outside Gaza. We can say with confidence that the blockade of Gaza is an illegal collective punishment contrary to the fourth Geneva Convention, and in fact it is now being challenged by Turkey in the International Court of Justice.

Her Majesty’s Government have been pressing for an end to the closure since June 2010 under UN Security Council Resolution 1860. This is all the more necessary since the exchange of Corporal Shalit. When will the Government achieve what they are asking for? EU sanctions on Israel could surely speed up the process, and of course we recognise that a prosperous Gaza is in Israel’s real national interest.