Sri Lanka

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for asking this Question for Short Debate.

I first became involved with Sri Lanka shortly after I joined this House, when I was invited to become a patron of DABAL, Deaf And Blind Aid Lanka, a small organisation of highly committed people in this country who raised funds for the support of schools for deaf and blind children in Sri Lanka. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Thanks to the good offices of the members of DABAL, I had the opportunity to visit Sri Lanka last summer and see for myself some of the schools that it assisted. Although the schools were staffed by highly dedicated individuals, it was clear that in all but two cases that had the benefit of private funding, the schools were chronically short of resources. We left hoping that the Government would do more in future to support the education of deaf and blind children in Sri Lanka.

I turn to the matters that are the specific subject of this debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, I am not an expert on the politics of Sri Lanka, so I shall just speak quite briefly. The essential question is how far a peacetime regime has truly replaced the kind of things that go on during war. As we have heard, in September 2015 and March 2017 the UN Human Rights Council adopted two resolutions requesting the Government of Sri Lanka to set up transitional justice mechanisms to address issues of reconciliation. The resolutions were co-sponsored by the Sri Lankan Government. If we look at what has happened since the end of the conflict in 2009, it is clear that the Sri Lankan Government have taken significant steps towards reconciliation, yet I am aware that Sri Lanka remains the object of considerable criticism from the international community. According to Amnesty International, Sri Lanka continues to pursue the commitments that it made in 2015 to deliver justice, truth, reparation and guarantees that crimes under international law will not recur but progress has slowed. There is still evidence of torture and other ill-treatment in police custody, while the Prevention of Terrorism Act is still used to arrest and detain suspects.

However, the positive steps that Sri Lanka has taken on the four pillars of transitional justice—truth, reconciliation, accountability and guarantees of non-recurrence—need to be recognised. We have heard about some of them already. An independent and permanent Office on Missing Persons has been set up. An Act to establish an Office for Reparations has been passed by the Parliament. Proposals have been brought forward for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission. New counterterrorism legislation that will repeal the existing Act and bring legislation into line with human rights standards is under consideration by the Parliament. As we have heard, 90% of state and private land used by security forces in the north and east of the island has been released for civilian use. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, around 880,000 displaced persons have been resettled, and around 12,000 former Tamil Tigers have been integrated back into society.

From this, I think it is clear that the Sri Lankan Government have done a great deal. However, there is still more to do and the Government cannot yet completely relax their efforts to bind up the wounds of a society that has so recently been riven by a protracted period of civil strife.

Brexit: Case for a Second Referendum

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I failed to get my name down on the list, but I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in the gap. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, had made it crystal clear in the debate last night that the Government were against a second referendum and that the matter was closed. I want to drive home the point made most forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth: that the second referendum being spoken about now would not be a re-run of the referendum on 23 June—in fact, it should not really be called a second referendum at all—but that we are talking about an opportunity for the people to have their say on the terms of withdrawal once they have been negotiated. I do not say that there should be a commitment to holding such a consultation here and now; I just say, as I did in the debate last night, that we should remain open to the possibility of holding such a consultation once the terms have been negotiated.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, this referendum should never have been called. It was called for narrow, tactical reasons of party advantage. It represented a colossal misjudgement on the part of the Prime Minister which has cost him his premiership and a favourable verdict from history but, more to the point, it has plunged the country into years of uncertainty and will have consequences for the UK which Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, has put at,

“pretty bad to very, very bad”,

and could lead to a recession—a judgment supported by nearly every other economic commentator of note. Given that things are usually neither as good or as bad as people say, I would settle for “pretty bad”, but certainly not “good”. This may be seen not so much in the bad things which happen, as in the good things—like investment decisions—which do not. But these, like Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”, are of their nature very much harder to track. In the immediate term it has created a vacuum in policy and leadership, seen most notably in the failure to provide any reassurances to the status of EU nationals living in this country. There has been widespread agreement in the debate that this needs to be addressed—and soon. It has also opened up major divisions in our community—as the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said—between the old and the young, the different countries of the United Kingdom, those living in our major cities and elsewhere, and those who have privilege, power and influence and those who feel they do not.

Perhaps one of the most worrying manifestations of this is the upsurge in racism, xenophobia and incidence of hate crime. One thing which is clear is that a snapshot of public opinion on a particular day is a very bad way to determine a question as complex as whether we should remain a member of the European Union. You could see this in people’s craving to be given the facts when facts were so thin on the ground and so much depended on matters of judgment. Of one thing we can be reasonably certain: that no Prime Minister is going to call another referendum any time soon.

At number 100 on the list, it is difficult to come up with anything very new. The speeches from which I have got most, except for the virtuoso performance of my noble friend Lord Bilimoria, were those of my noble friends Lord Kerr and Lord Butler and my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, though there may well have been others in the same vein which I have missed. The point I would make about them is that they have all emphasised the fact that the result of the referendum is not a once-and-for-all decision—a case of sudden death, as it were. The mantra “we are where we are” makes sense only if by that we mean that the referendum triggers a dynamic process in which there are several more decision points along the way, with options at each point as to how the decision should be taken. For instance, when should notice of withdrawal be given under Article 50? Straightaway before we have worked out what we wish to achieve in the withdrawal negotiations or not until we have worked out our negotiating position? The latter would surely seem to make more sense, but who should take the decision—the Prime Minister or Parliament? A substantial body of opinion would suggest it should be Parliament, though my noble friend Lord Lisvane has argued strongly that an exercise of prerogative power is sufficient. However, even he agrees that parliamentary endorsement is a political, if not legal, necessity. Doing it this way would certainly help to avoid a legal challenge.

Should notice under Article 50 be preceded by informal talks with the rest of the EU to scope the parameters of withdrawal? That would certainly seem desirable, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has argued, though there seems to be some doubt about the EU’s willingness to engage in such discussions. Can an Article 50 notice be withdrawn in the course of negotiations if it looks as though the best we can get is worse than what we enjoy at the moment? The committee of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, seems clear that it can but again according to my noble and learned friend Lord Brown this is disputed—another field day for the lawyers, no doubt. Finally, when should the European Communities Act 1972 be repealed? Presumably not until the enormous jungle of law dependent on it has been sorted out.

What scope is there for public opinion to be consulted again at any of these stages along the way? The most obvious point would be that at which the result of the withdrawal negotiation was known and it was desired to know what the people thought of the terms. Last week, in questions on the Prime Minister’s Statement, I suggested that there was a strong case for a second referendum on a more precisely focused question such as this. There are no doubt substantial arguments against a second referendum. It invites the charge that it simply proceeds from an unwillingness to accept the result of the first referendum. Moreover, since there is widespread agreement that the vote for leave represented a protest by those who felt left behind and ignored against by the establishment, what could be perceived as an attempt to rerun the referendum—just because we did not like the result—risks further undermining trust in political institutions.

We should therefore be reluctant to call for a second referendum. However, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House surely goes too far—as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has said—in describing the result of the referendum as an instruction. Professor Vernon Bogdanor goes much too far when he writes in the Telegraph:

“The people, however, have become, for constitutional issues at least, a third chamber of the legislature, with the power to issue instructions which the politicians cannot ignore. The sovereignty of the people trumps the sovereignty of Parliament”.

No one doubts that the referendum is only advisory. The majority for leave was only a narrow one. There are good grounds for saying that a referendum on a question of the magnitude of this one should require a super-majority of say 60% or two-thirds. As Tony Blair has said, the case for leave has significantly crumbled. Its leading proponents have abandoned the principal foundations on which it rested. It has become clear that they did not have the faintest idea of how Brexit was to be implemented. People have begun to realise that they were misled. There is significant evidence of people rethinking the way they voted in the aftermath of the referendum and more than 4 million people have signed the petition calling for a second referendum. In these circumstances we should remain open to the possibility of a second referendum on the terms of withdrawal, once they have been negotiated.

European Commission: Portfolios

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, can the noble Baroness say whether she thinks it would be useful for Prime Ministers to receive training in recruitment, diplomacy and negotiation skills?

[Baroness Warsi]

I understand the point that the noble Lord is trying to make. However, we all have to accept that the Prime Minister stood up for UK interests and was responsive to what we all heard—or should have heard—at the recent European elections, which is that the people of the European Union, across the European Union, want change.

Syria

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I am acutely aware of the issues that my noble friend raises. I think he will accept that it is important that we continue to respond to the situation on the ground, and that we can see that the Government have responded at various stages as the situation on the ground has changed. However, 93,000 people have now died and over half the population has been displaced. There are no no-risk options and no perfect solutions. For that reason, we must continue to monitor the situation on the ground and to respond to it.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness not accept that the bankruptcy of the international community’s policy towards Syria stands revealed for all to see? The failure to intervene more robustly earlier has brought about the very situation that was given as the reason for not intervening, and the failure of the supposedly game-changing use of chemical weapons to change any games robs the West of its last vestiges of credibility, showing it up as little better than an ignominious rabbit trapped in the headlights.

[Baroness Warsi]

Given our own history of intervention, it is important that we get appropriate legal and international support for what we do. That is why the Prime Minister has consistently tried to get agreement at the UN Security Council. It is no secret that Russia has not been prepared to move to get that agreement, but—my noble friend referred to this—we still believe in having a conference where the UN, the US and Russia sit round the table with the opposition and members of the regime to try to find a political resolution. As for chemical weapons, I think noble Lords will understand why it is important that we are incredibly clear about what weapons have been found, where they have been found, who has used them, and that there is international agreement, based on the evidence that we have so far, before we start using that as a basis for intervention.

Death Penalty

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, I read about that somewhere in my brief, but I am not sure exactly where it was. Rather than give the noble Lord an answer that is not entirely correct, I will write to him with a very specific answer.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, Afzal Guru was hanged in India on 9 February this year—the second execution in that country in three months—following an eight-year hiatus in executions. Reports suggest that four more prisoners, after their mercy petitions were rejected, are due to be executed imminently. What efforts are the Government making to encourage the Indian Government to stop this regressive move? Was this one of the issues that the Prime Minister raised with the Indian Government when he recently visited India?

[Baroness Warsi]

The matter was raised during the recent visit. We made representations via my right honourable friend the Minister of State, Hugo Swire, who has responsibility for India. He raised that matter when he visited Delhi with a large delegation on 21 February. We have separately made representations through the EU, and will continue to raise through the EU-India human rights dialogue India’s use of the death penalty. Of course, the matter is extremely concerning, because there was effectively a moratorium, as the noble Lord said, between 2004 and 2012. We would like it to move back to that position, with a view to formal abolition.

Middle East: Quartet

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is asking about the broader issue of Israel and Iran and the very tense situation that clearly exists. I think it was President Obama who, on becoming President, was advised that everything in the Middle East is connected with everything else. Israel’s concerns about Iran, and all our concerns about Iran’s attempt to move to nuclear weapons, are part of the Middle East imbroglio. However, we must not let that take our eye too much off the need for the Middle East peace process to go ahead and for the road blocks along that process—including the building of settlements, which is clearly a major obstacle—to be overcome.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, with the rate of Israeli settlement in Palestine continuing apace and apparently unchecked, in precisely what respect has the situation improved on the ground?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As far as settlements are concerned, it has not improved at all. On the contrary, although the Jerusalem municipality has told the British representatives who make constant representations that for the moment it does not plan any further settlements, or any further demolition in east Jerusalem either, the settlements seem to continue. So there has been no improvement there. I was referring to Palestine industry and enterprise and some beginnings—even in the miserable conditions of Gaza—of advance in enterprise, thanks to some noble and dynamic contributions by British businesses.

UN: Death Penalty

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think that that is a very good idea, and one that is often overlooked in thinking about and analysing the Commonwealth. The legal and judicial links between the 54 countries of the Commonwealth provide one of the most powerful opportunities to improve and upgrade human rights, and indeed the administration of justice generally. The noble Lord is absolutely right.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, in 2010 Sudan raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and introduced the Child Act 2010, which prohibits the execution of children. However, in October, 10 people, of whom four are believed to be children, were sentenced to death by hanging. What representations have the Government made to Sudan on this issue?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is right to use the word “However” because, although Sudan has raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and has indeed introduced an Act of Parliament that inhibits the execution of children—I should think so too—nevertheless, in October, 10 people were sentenced to death by hanging and four of them are believed to be children. We regularly raise human rights issues with the Government of Sudan, including that of the death penalty. We are aware of the incidents in question and continue to monitor the situation closely. I cannot tell the noble Lord more than that at the moment, but he is absolutely right to point out the contrast between what Sudan has passed as law and what it appears to be intending to do. I hope that we can take effective action.

Council of Europe

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I crave the indulgence of the House in speaking for a moment in the gap to bring to your Lordships’ attention a disturbing development of which I learnt only last night. I apologise to the Minister for the fact that I missed the first few minutes of his speech.

Among the many valuable things that the Council of Europe does, one of the most valuable is its support for a Conference of International Non-Governmental Organisations enjoying participatory status with the Council of Europe. This conference is one of the four pillars of the Council of Europe whose role is to strengthen respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law throughout Europe—something that has always been at the heart of British foreign policy. Council Resolution (2003)8 bestowed participatory status on selected international NGOs in recognition of the critical role that they can play in fostering dialogue between civil society and the other Council institutions, and in promoting participatory democracy and fundamental rights in member states—in forwarding the core work of the Council of Europe, in other words, to which many other noble Lords have attested.

The conference has taken a particular interest in the rights of disabled people, which is how I come to know about it. I am president of the European Blind Union, which is a member of the conference and thus has participatory status with the Council. I declare my interest accordingly.

The Council is distinct in granting participatory status to the NGO community. This has given civil society a voice and a stake in Europe—something which should be seen as being of prime importance at a time when we are all concerned about democratic deficits in Europe. However, we have just learnt that the Council is now proposing major cuts in the conference’s budget, which would significantly erode its effectiveness, if not neuter it altogether. The conference’s budget for 2010 is a mere 0.52 per cent of the total budget of the Council of Europe. That proposed for 2011 foresees a reduction in excess of 50 per cent but could, we are told, reach 80 per cent. Such a saving would be just a drop in the ocean so far as concerns the Council of Europe, but it would surely spell the end of the crucial work of the Conference of International NGOs in contributing to the effective implementation of Council programmes and in drawing up and implementing legal instruments which ensure the protection of human rights, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Social Charter, the convention on combating the trafficking of human beings and the proposed convention on combating violence against women.

In 2009, the Committee of Ministers declared that one of its priorities was,

“to develop, with the assistance of the Conference of International Non-Governmental Organizations, interaction with civil society, whose grassroots work we salute”.

Given that the Council states that its proposals for reform are aimed at refocusing around its fundamental values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and areas in which it enjoys a real comparative advantage in doing what others are not able to do, the effective disablement of the Conference of International NGOs through the proposed cuts would surely be counterproductive. The Council’s budget will be discussed and adopted by the Committee of Ministers next week, and I hope very much that the Minister will do whatever he can, through the Government’s representation on the Council of Ministers, to see that this disastrous and self-defeating cut is significantly attenuated, if it cannot be wholly reversed.