Iraq: Displaced Minority Communities

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Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right about the appalling atrocities being committed against Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities. That is one of the reasons why the Foreign Secretary has led the campaign to bring Daesh to justice. This initiative involves working with the Iraqi Government and others, and going to the UN to ensure that these atrocities are recorded and that eventually, when peace is restored, Daesh can be brought to justice for the crimes it has committed against humanity.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, for those of us who had relatives in Germany after the Second World War, what helped enormously there was the introduction of the Marshall plan. Is not the time coming for those in the West to think about producing the equivalent for Syria and Iraq? In particular, it would be nice to see the United Kingdom in the lead.

[Lord Bates]

The Marshall plan initiatives in post-war Europe are certainly topical, for not only the Middle East but the needs of Africa, which is facing famine. I think we will look at that, but we can take pride that the UK has consistently been at the forefront of efforts to raise funds in that region: £169 million, including £90 million in the present year, has already been raised to be spent in Iraq to help people, along with £2.3 billion for Syria, our largest response ever. However, I totally agree that more needs to be done.

Syria

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Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate Her Majesty’s Government on calling this conference and on the UK showing the lead that it has in money and resources to help the refugees. Nevertheless, I am reminded of what happened in the Second World War. Is my noble friend clear that the Americans and Churchill found themselves having to work with Stalin? I cannot understand why the West, and the UK Government in particular, cannot bring itself to do business with Assad. There is no way out for peace in that country—and certainly no way to deal with Daesh—unless there is some dialogue and connection with Assad.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend absolutely puts the focus on Assad. Assad and his regime have got it in their hands to stop bombing their own people. If there is to be a political solution, it is incumbent on everyone to come around to the talks and ensure that we get a positive outcome that enables peace to take place.

Middle East and North Africa

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Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, would like to be associated with the tributes paid to my noble friend Lord Brooke. In cricketing terms, he has carried his bat and scored a century in his last innings.

My speech is not about the plight of refugees, which I recognise, but about how to stop the war, eradicate ISIL and make it possible for the people to return and live in peace. During the Recess, I decided to study Saladin, guided by a book recently written by John Man. Saladin faced not dissimilar problems to the ones we do today. His answer was to provide single-minded leadership that united Sunni and Shia factions, with the objective of throwing out the Franks—that is, the West. His methods were a combination of force and soft diplomacy, which succeeded only because they involved—I emphasise this—Sunni and Shia. The challenge is not just a Middle Eastern one. It affects much of the world including China, India and Russia, all of whom face the danger of this radical, fanatical, vicious and fundamental Muslim sect. We need, I suggest, to analyse dispassionately the context.

First, in relation to Syria, this is the fourth Sunni-Shia war. Assad and his Government will not collapse because they are supported by Iran, Hezbollah and other Shia factions, plus the Russians; that is the reality. Secondly, we in the UK have to admit that we made some errors. We made a fatal error on 20 November 2012, arising out of the Doha conference, in recognising what we thought was a pro-western, modern Sunni faction opposed to Assad when we had no idea who they really were. We really should be ashamed at our total diplomatic failure to anticipate this. In fact, it turned out that the vast majority were Sunni jihadists, with some ISIL and a few western-educated Syrians. Thirdly, it does us good to reflect on our own disastrous Arab spring policy: in Libya, where we managed to destroy all law and order; in Egypt, where our interference nearly resulted in the Brotherhood fanatics taking over; and, sadly, even in the Maldives, which I know well, where having promoted a UK-educated Maldivian we have ended up with a jihadist threat there as well.

Why do we not reflect for a minute on what happened in the Second World War? It cannot have been easy for Churchill to decide to sit down to discuss how to attack Germany and deal with Nazism, when we know from history that there was very little rapport between him and Stalin. However, they worked jointly to defeat the common evil. That common evil is now ISIL, and it is on ISIL alone that we should all be focusing. That includes using Assad’s Syrian forces. All of us—Sunni, Shia, Turks, Kurds, Russia, the Western powers, China and India—must eradicate ISIL. It can be done. The House will know that I have been deeply involved in Sri Lanka for some 50 years. In May 2009, what was then the worst terrorist group in the world, the Tamil Tigers, was obliterated there. If we do not do this, the world will suffer; in particular, the West will suffer. So we must think again about Assad and the Shias. We need them all. We need to reflect on what Churchill faced and how he acted. We need to involve the great powers of Russia, India and China. We need to listen to those of our noble friends who have detailed experience of Syria and that part of the world. The noble Lords, Lord Wright, Lord Kerr and Lord Green of Deddington, know that area of the Middle East in depth.

We need to switch off the engine of publicity, particularly in the West. We need to be brave enough to ban any marches in favour of ISIL. It is a proscribed group, and therefore every flag-waving ISIL supporter is flouting the proscription and we must not be weak, but act. Defeat ISIL and the refugee problem will fade away as people return and rebuild, ideally helped by what I hope will be the equivalent of a modern Marshall plan.

The real question is: who will provide the leadership and soft power diplomacy to bring together Sunni and Shia Muslims to make the eradication of ISIL happen? In my view, somehow or other, that leadership must come from the Muslim world and a rapprochement between Sunni and Shia.

Queen’s Speech

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Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Howell was so right to raise the question of the Commonwealth, particularly with the forthcoming conference in Colombo of the heads of state. Sri Lanka is a proud founder member of the Commonwealth. After nearly 30 years of civil war, it seems absolutely appropriate that the members of the Commonwealth should go to Colombo and see that country. I certainly know that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will have an enormously warm welcome from the people of Sri Lanka.

I place on record my thanks to the present Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for taking the lead in going to Colombo. He is only the second Prime Minister to do so. The late Mrs Thatcher went in 1984, soon after what was probably the worst experience of Sri Lanka since independence, which followed on from the riots in 1983 when six soldiers were killed in Jaffna. Frankly, the Government of the time there reacted too slowly to those riots and many Tamils suffered as a result. Mrs Thatcher made a brave decision to go, and in going she helped that country to move forward and heal some of those wounds. This meeting comes, in my judgment, at a good time. Terrorism has been defeated and our Prime Minister and the other leaders can see for themselves what has happened in the three years following the war. I think many good things have happened, but they should go and have a look for themselves.

It is not news that one of the key issues in Sri Lanka is human rights. I thank the Commonwealth Secretary-General and his staff for taking the initiative in leading a review of what is happening on the ground. There are two signals that I take heart from. First, a large number of Tamils left Sri Lanka through those years of the great difficulty of the civil war. More recently, more than 1,000 have come back from Australia of their own free will and, to the best of my knowledge, only one has had any difficulty. Several hundred have come back from the UK and substantial numbers from New Zealand. The one country where not too many have come back from is Canada. My analysis is that that is basically because a number of Tamils have become MPs in Canada and are deeply involved in Canadian politics. I hope that Canada will think again and come to Colombo.

The second good point that has happened is that President Rajapaksa is the first leader since independence to insist that it must be a trilingual country. There is very real progress in the Civil Service, in teaching, in the schools and in the road signs of a trilingual approach, which brings the Tamil community into becoming real members of Sri Lanka.

I have just received a letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Alistair Burt, and I place on record my thanks to him for his diligence, time and patience and the even-handedness with which he has juggled the varying points of view that have been presented to him on Sri Lanka. His letter raised three points that the Foreign Secretary is going to look at when he goes to Colombo. First, he highlights free and fair provincial council elections in the north on 7 September. The portents are quite good. The electoral register has only just been compiled by Tamil teachers, which is healthy. I pray that those elections go reasonably smoothly. Secondly, he highlights the freedom of the press. We all believe that is important, but we have to reflect a little on Leveson. There is no Leveson problem, or certainly nothing of the scale of Leveson, in Sri Lanka. As someone who knows much of south Asia, in my judgment there is far more freedom of the press in Sri Lanka than in Malaysia or Singapore.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps one of the key points, the Foreign Secretary says he is going to go to the north. I hope by that he means Jaffna. It is the place to go. It is the key part of the Tamil community in the north. I am told he is going to meet civil society, NGOs and political representatives. That is a good start, but he must not exclude the military, in particular the CO at Palali base. Palali defends the northern shores of Sri Lanka and—I am sorry to say this, but it is true—within Tamil Nadu, the Indian state adjacent to Sri Lanka, it appears that the LTTE—the Tamil Tigers—is still welcome today As your Lordships may know, Tamil Nadu is a key component of the coalition in India, which perhaps accounts for some of India’s recent reactions. If it were me, I would also meet the religious leaders—you cannot divorce religion as it is far more powerful there than it is here—the government agent, which is the equivalent of our county councillor, and business leaders, because we want to get that economy going.

The letter also says that the Foreign Secretary is going to meet NGOs. There are some wonderful NGOs across the world. I highlight the International Red Cross as one of the most wonderful. I went out at the time of the tsunami. Much good work was done by many NGOs, but I am afraid that there was also much less good work done by some NGOs. Tragically, some containers came from the UK containing arms for the Tamil Tigers. There are all sorts of NGOs. Some do great work, some do less great work.

Finally, I look at Sri Lankans’ understanding of what happens elsewhere in the world. They look with some amazement at the USA leading this rights issue in the light of Guantanamo Bay, people being kidnapped for 10 years and shootings on campuses. Many in Sri Lanka say, “There’s nothing like that in Sri Lanka. We may have our difficulties and abuses, but there is nothing like that”.

My message is to all leaders in the Commonwealth and, in particular, to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. It is that they should go and see for themselves but should bear in mind that there was nearly 30 years of war. Near the end of World War 2, Herbert Morrison said:

“One of the lessons I hope they”—

that is, people—

“will have learned is that there are no shorts cut and no easy solutions. Nothing is made better by pronouncing curses on the older generation or the Government, or any other cheap and easy scapegoat”.

What was true of the UK in 1945 is equally true in Sri Lanka today after more than 27 years of civil war.

Foreign Affairs: Global Role, Emerging Powers and New Markets

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Thursday 6th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I concur in congratulating my noble friend on the initiative of holding this debate. I do not want to embarrass him but, frankly, he is the best Foreign Secretary that we never had. I couple that with the role that the noble Lord, Lord Marland, plays as part of the team with the noble Lord, Lord Green. He is probably the most energetic ambassador for British trade and commerce overseas that I have ever witnessed. I saw him in action in Sri Lanka in April and that visit was a whirlwind success. I do not know how many other countries he visited on that occasion but I congratulate him and the team behind him.

Forty-five years ago I wrote a pamphlet for the Bow Group entitled Helping the Exporter. I was one of three authors, all of whom had worked overseas for two or three years prior to writing that pamphlet. It was based on the fact that in the previous 10 years this country’s percentage of world trade had dropped from 20% to 13.5%. That is what prompted us, as young men aged around 30, to take an initiative and try to move the then Government to think creatively about how we should export and how we could improve our exports. We looked particularly at what the Government of the day did and at the agencies that were quasi-government at that time. One of the areas that we looked at was the Plowden committee report, which was basically about part of the structure of the Foreign Office at that time. I venture to suggest to my noble friend Lord Green that he should dust down that report and have another look at its conclusions. I had a look at them and many of them are very valid today, as they were then.

I shall pick out two of the 28 recommendations in the pamphlet. One concerned the Queen’s Award. If I am absolutely frank, I think that it is pretty tired at the moment. Here in this jubilee year we have a wonderful opportunity to relaunch that award, and I venture to suggest that we might look at that creatively. Secondly, the personnel within the Foreign Office that I meet overseas are, frankly, too young in terms of trade and business. They are too inexperienced and do not have the relevant knowledge, depth or contacts. That needs to be looked at.

I turn to the other half of the Motion: the United Kingdom’s new global role. We should be realistic: we do not really have a global role. We do not have enough of a defence facility and we do not have enough stretch in terms of contact on the ground. Therefore, we have to prioritise and select. We have to be brave enough occasionally to say no to certain ventures that we might morally think we should be involved in but do not have the resources to do properly. With regard to the Arab spring, north Africa and that area, we thought that Tunisia had undergone a relatively easy transition. However, demonstrations are now bubbling up, mirroring what is happening elsewhere. The recent murder of the US ambassador in Libya brings into question whether we were right to intervene there. I thought from the beginning that we were not, and I question whether the £1 billion or thereabouts that we spent on that venture was good value for money.

It has taken the Muslim Brotherhood some 84 years to get power in Egypt. Those of us who know Egypt a bit need to reflect on that. Are we confident that we backed the right side in getting rid of Mubarak if we end up with the Muslim Brotherhood? I am not at all sure. Jordan, you could say, is another country, but we are very silent on Jordan. As for Syria, I ask myself why we are backing anyone. It never was our sphere of influence; it was a French one. Why did we not leave it to the French? Who are we really backing? We have formally recognised a group but the stretch of the power base of that group is pretty illusory and does not seem to have too much basis as far as I can see. I ask myself: is the real risk that we are going to change from the Ba’ath Party autocracy to the Islamic jihadist movement? Certainly, we need to reflect on that. That is why two weeks ago I wrote to the Prime Minister, which I rarely do, saying that in my judgment there was absolutely no case for the British military to go in on humanitarian grounds; that is the role of the international Red Cross. Those of us who work in and know those areas should not forget that there is also the Red Crescent, which is as powerful and objective as the Red Cross, and it is a facility for some, but not all, of the UN agencies.

I turn lastly to an area that I know well, south and south-east Asia. I have lived and worked in three of the countries there: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. I think that I have visited every other country in that region with the exception of Burma. Today, apart from in India, the infrastructure and influence in that region is Japanese and Chinese—and now we have the Obama vision moving into that part of the world. As the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said, that part of the world used to be very close to us but, whether we like it or not, over time we have alienated many of the countries there for all sorts of reasons. Even today we sometimes show little understanding of them.

When the then Foreign Secretary, Mr Miliband, went to India in 2009, he drew the allusion that the problem of Mumbai terrorism was associated with Kashmir. Not only was that wrong—in fact it was categorised as a diplomatic disaster—but so were the nuances that went with it. I shall quote from the Independent, which said:

“To make matters worse, he”—

Mr Miliband—

“kept addressing India’s septuagenarian Foreign Minister by his first name and putting his arm around him”.

There are certain traditions and methods of greeting and understanding people in that part of the world that are very different from what we do in the United Kingdom, and it is no credit to any of us if we forget that.

With the Commonwealth conference coming up next September in that part of the world, in Sri Lanka, which is greatly welcomed by the rest of the Commonwealth countries, we should remember Kipling’s epitaph, which states:

“A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East”.

Ingram National Park Visitor Centre

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Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I have no evidence that any other centre in a national park has been closed. I have had a look at the tourist centres across the county. The noble Baroness is quite right that there are a number of other such centres, which are obviously very welcome. One would hope that they would work closely with the national park in this regard. The chair of the authority has not closed the door. He said:

“We are looking very hard at alternative ways of providing an effective visitor information service and have not closed the door to any new suggestions people may … put … to us”.

Therefore, I suggest that the noble Baroness gets in touch with him.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I have not been to the visitor centre in question, but is this decision not very strange at a time when we are promoting tourism in this country, when local and public money has been put into the centre over quite a long time and when there are also facilities available from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other similar bodies? I went to a celebration—and indeed gave a speech, as your Lordships will understand—at the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon. That is kept going by the joint activities of local people and Cambridgeshire County Council. Perhaps a second reflection might be appropriate. I hope that the Minister will be in a position to push this forward herself.

[Baroness Northover]

I am sure that the authority will be looking very closely at what noble Lords are saying today and seeing what can be done to take this forward. This was a small centre, as I understand it, with two members of staff. The much bigger one is on Hadrian’s Wall. As I say, that is going to be added to and will become a centre of national significance. I am extremely pleased that that has been possible at this time.

International Development Aid

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Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

I should first like to pay tribute to the great work that the noble Lord did when he was a Member of another place. I should also like to congratulate him on the work that he is continuing to do to ensure that the relationship between Scotland and the African countries is maintained. The United Nations is of course one of our key partners; but, as I said, we are going through the multilateral and bilateral review process. This process will ensure that we are able to target and focus all our aid budget on the programmes and countries that need it the most and where the outcomes are best achieved.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that DfID’s practical help in demining in Sri Lanka has been enormously welcome and pretty successful? But as the refugees—more than 270,000 of them—have nearly all now returned home, the crying need is for infrastructure, particularly in the health field. Will she, with DfID, look at the possibility of building at least one hospital in the northern region of Sri Lanka?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is absolutely right about the work that DfID has done to try to reduce the suffering caused by landmines and the explosive remnants of war. As I have said several times over, we are coming towards the end of our reviews. These really can give us a greater focus on where our aid will go. However, healthcare and education are key to supporting the work that we do.