Afghanistan

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I know a bit about panic. I saw it when I was in Hong Kong after the Chinese fired on protesters in Tiananmen Square. I saw it when I was an election observer in the Gambia, when the police opened fire on opposition supporters, and I experienced panic of my own when a man with a sword attacked me in my constituency office and killed my assistant. The scenes in Afghanistan in recent days reminded me of those events.

There are almost 40 million people in Afghanistan. Those aged over 20 know what it was like living under the Taliban. Now they face it all over again after they had thought that we, their friends, and the Americans and others would stop the barbarism ever happening again.

I have met people from Afghanistan. I went to a village cricket match not so long ago where the local team played against a team of Afghan refugees—yes, Afghanistan is a nation of cricketers, just like us and their neighbours in Pakistan. One young man told me that he liked it in our village because the countryside and the hills reminded him of home. Afghans are just like us: they are people with hopes and aspirations. Now many of them are full of fear for the future of their families, their country and themselves.

We have a moral responsibility to accept as many refugees as possible—not just 20,000 over the long term, as the Lord Privy Seal said at the start of this debate. Some may apply to stay permanently. They will make a great contribution to our country. I hope we will be generous to them. Let us base our actions on the example we set with the Vietnamese boat people who fled from the Viet Cong. We settled whole families, first at Sopley in Hampshire, and then let them choose where they would like to live. Some came to Cheltenham and set up successful businesses—I know some of them and count them as personal friends.

Today, Afghanistan faces the triple threat of the pandemic, a climate change-induced drought and the Taliban takeover. It is our duty to do whatever we can to help those affected. When they arrive, we want no more “hostile environment” tactics from this Government. For starters, they can scrap plans in the Nationality and Borders Bill to criminalise and punish refugees. And, for another suggestion, why do not Mr Johnson, Mr Raab and Ms Patel go to see for themselves what is going on in Afghanistan?

Afghans are wonderful human beings. Many have had bad experiences and fear more of the same; we should welcome them and help them feel at home.

Ecocide

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that we have to drive this forward. I know that an international group has recently defined ecocide, but I say again that the UK is a key player in all the multilateral forums focusing on tackling climate change. The significant amendment that would be required to establish a crime of ecocide is not only likely to distract from reform of the international court. It would also be extremely difficult to secure the agreement of all state parties and could occupy international negotiators for many years, which is why the UK is concentrating on what we can do domestically and to influence international parties.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

The new legal definition of ecocide builds on many aspects of established international criminal law and environmental law, as well as existing text in the Rome statute. Will the Government be a world leader on this? If so, how will they explain it to the oil and plastics industries?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

That is an interesting question. The UK’s priority, as I said, is to reform the court so that it functions more effectively and to take a leadership role in persuading international parties of the importance of the environment. On the oil and gas industries, the noble Lord will be aware of a number of initiatives, such as the 10-point plan, the White Paper and the North Sea transition deal, which seeks to show the oil and gas industries a pathway to decarbonising and to reskilling many of their workforce towards more environmentally friendly things, such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen technologies.

Questions for Written Answers

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. It is worth noting that, in the Session to date, Ministers for the Department of Health and Social Care—principally my noble friend Lord Bethell—have answered 100 Oral Questions and 22 Private Notice Questions, as well as handling more than 40 Statements. In this House, we have also debated 56 sets of health protection regulations. It is not just through Written Answers that the DHSC has been accountable to this House.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

I received a written response on 4 February, within the time limit, saying that

“The Department for Work and Pensions plans to respond shortly on this issue,”


which felt like a fob-off. Since then, nothing. What is the Government’s interpretation of the word “shortly”?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, we have debated this matter a number of times in this Chamber. Clearly, the noble Lord is entitled to expect a substantive answer within the space of a few days of the Answer he received. I shall follow up the matter he has raised but, as I said earlier, Ministers take their obligations to Parliament very seriously. My noble friend the Leader of the House regularly speaks to members of the Government Front Bench about the importance of timely responses to Written Questions, and her office actively chases late Answers.