European Union Membership: Science and Technology
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I do not have the exact figures the noble Lord is asking for. However, in the latest EU Innovation Union Scoreboard, the Commission noted that the UK’s performance was 9% above the EU average in 2007 and 15% above the average for 2014. But the point is that we are looking for an improved deal in a reformed Europe. When the Government have a deal, that will be the time for a full discussion and debate on these issues.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, we really need to get better at this. All of us have a responsibility to make Question Time work. It is not just down to me to help the House; it is the responsibility of everybody. My noble friends behind me are calling for the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. As noble Lords know, it is not for me to decide who speaks in this House; it is for the House to indicate whose turn it is. I suggest that we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, then from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, as we have not yet heard from a Liberal Democrat this Question Time.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. Are the Government aware of the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, which show that in 2013 the UK gave the EU some £14 billion net? Is there any reason why we could not invest in this and other worthy causes out of the huge saving we would make on withdrawal? Indeed, does that figure not prove that there is no such thing as EU aid to this country at all?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Your Lordships may also be aware of the improvements in the budget that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made at the end of 2013. But the whole point of the debate today is that we are focusing on renegotiation with the EU to get the best possible deal for the UK in a reformed Europe, which we hope to be able to recommend, although obviously if partners stonewall and refuse to compromise, we can rule nothing out.
BBC Royal Charter
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, funding, governance and all other aspects, especially ensuring that we continue to have some of the best public broadcasting in the world, are all matters for the charter review, which will be getting under way very soon.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, the House seems to be calling for the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, but we have plenty of time and we have not heard from the Liberal Democrat Benches either. I suggest that we hear first from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and then move to the Liberal Democrats.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am most grateful. Have the Government examined the News-watch.co.uk website, which shows how the BBC has so far failed to allow fair debate between the two sides in the forthcoming EU referendum and thus to respect its present charter? Might it be good to involve the public in the next charter by allowing the licence fee-payers to elect the BBC’s trustees and, through them, the chairman and the director-general?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I have not seen the News-watch website that was referred to, but I will obviously take the opportunity to look at it as part of my induction into this vital area. All aspects of the kind that the noble Lord describes will be looked at in the review. As I said, I think that the comments from this House will be very helpful to us in coming to the right conclusions.
Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament Report: Fusilier Lee Rigby
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My noble friend is a former chairman of the ISC and I pay tribute to his knowledge and assessment of the committee’s report published today. I share his view that it is a very substantial and unprecedented piece of work on the part of the committee. It shows that we were right to put the ISC on a stronger footing through the Justice and Security Act. The redactions in the report are in line with the process in that Act for redacting material and we have very much followed that process. I cannot confirm that the Government’s detailed response to today’s report will be available before Second Reading as I do not yet have the date when we will respond or, indeed, when the Bill will be introduced in your Lordships’ House. However, I will reflect on the point that my noble friend makes.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, are the Government aware that Fusilier Rigby’s murderers quoted 22 verses of the Koran to justify their atrocity? Therefore, is the Prime Minister accurate or helpful when he describes it as a betrayal of Islam? Since the vast majority of Muslims are our peace-loving friends, should we not encourage them to address the violence in the Koran—and, indeed, in the life and the example of Muhammad?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, British Muslims want strong counterterrorism measures in this country so that everybody in this country who shares British values, whatever their faith, is safe. That is basically all I need to say to the noble Lord.
EU Council
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As I said in an earlier response, the Prime Minister is clear that this demand, and the scale of it, have come out of the blue without any proper preliminary discussions. We now have to consider it very carefully and in great detail, and that is what we are going to do.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, in all the hullabaloo about yet another £1.7 billion of our taxpayers’ money going down the drain in Brussels, I notice that the Statement fails to mention a brilliant new spending spree to which the Council agreed—a mere €300 billion over 2015 to 2017. However, the Council conclusions mention it on page 10, where it is referred to as the,
“Strategic Agenda for the Union in Times of Change”.
Can the Minister tell us what the UK’s share will be of this new €300 billion and when we will pay it? Presumably we are looking at about another €30 billion or so over the next two years. Can she also tell us whether the Prime Minister was a party to this further lunacy or whether he was outvoted?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The package to which the noble Lord refers is the new investment package that the new Commission is proposing for the eurozone. Clearly, if it is the eurozone, that does not include the United Kingdom.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The noble Lord is focusing on the wrong thing. What is vital is that we have been presented with a massive bill which is wholly unacceptable and have been given a wholly unacceptable timeframe in which to pay it.
Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)
I think that the noble Lord has already had a go. Is it not the case that the agreement on climate change, happily, does not amount to a row of beans? The official conclusions say that,
“all Member States will participate in this effort, balancing considerations of fairness and solidarity”.
In other words, there is no target for any individual member state, and I commend the Government for having made it clear that energy policy is the responsibility of member states, not of the European Union as a whole, so it does not mean anything.
Is not the fundamental question of the contributions a problem? While the late Lady Thatcher succeeded in securing a substantial improvement in the net contribution which we paid, not only was that net improvement insufficient to do us justice but the previous Labour Government also gave a large part of it away in exchange for a promise of reform of the common agricultural policy, which has not happened. This is why the issue is so sensitive. We already pay more than our fair share into the European Union budget.
Iraq
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, I refer you to a short debate I held in Grand Committee on 19 November last, when I asked the Government to justify the Prime Minister’s statement after the murder of Drummer Rigby that there is nothing in Islam which justifies acts of violence. I will not repeat what I said then, given our time constraint, but mention it as background to these few words.
We are now met to consider military action against the self-styled Islamic State, which has surfaced since that debate, and I support such action; but I fear that military action alone—and even victorious boots on the ground—will not be able to contain the resurgence of jihadist Islam on our planet. I suggest that we have to look deeper and accept that there are many verses in the later Koran and in the later actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, which Muslims are instructed to follow, which justify acts of violence.
Islam has the problem of the Muslim tenet of abrogation, which holds that where there is contradiction in the Koran, the later texts outweigh the earlier. I cited two of those verses on 19 November but have time for only one today. Surah 9.29 reads like this:
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture—[fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled”.
That means a tax on non-Muslims.
There are many other such verses which are being enforced by ISIS, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and wherever the sharia penal code is strictly enforced.
It does not help to point out that the Bible and other ancient religious texts have similarly violent passages. Jehovah did indeed smite the uncircumcised quite a bit in the Old Testament, but there is nothing of that in the New Testament, from which Christianity takes its inspiration. Jesus said:
“Love thy neighbour as thyself”,
and, “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you”. His instruction was universal. He was not talking just about relations between Christians, whereas I understand that the verses of peace in the Koran may refer largely to relations between Muslims. Of course, modern Jews do not act out the gruesome instructions of Leviticus and Exodus, so the comparison with the Old Testament does not help.
As I said on 19 November, Christianity has still been the volcano through which much evil has erupted over the centuries, but that is no longer happening. Today, it appears that the collective darkness of our humanity has moved largely into the violent end of Islam, where only peaceful Islam can resist it theologically and defeat it at its roots. As the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal said in her opening remarks, we must support our Muslim friends as they try to reclaim their religion—I would add, particularly in this country.
I repeat a question I put to the Government on 19 November, to which I did not get a reply: as our jihadists are such a tiny minority who misinterpret the Koran and the holy texts, why does the great majority of Muslims not do more to stand up against them? For instance, could not the Government encourage our Muslim leaders in this country to call a great council to issue a fatwa against our jihadists, casting them out of Islam? Dozens of our imams wrote to the Independent newspaper on 17 September invoking Islam for the release of Alan Henning. Could they not form the nucleus of such a council? It would also need to address the violent verses in the Koran to which I have referred. One suggestion is that they should be declared to refer to the internal struggle between good and evil within each one of us, while true Islam flows only from the verses of peace.
Perhaps such a new explanation of Islam might also help to meet the point made by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—that our young Muslims need a much better vision for their lives—with which, I am sure, all your Lordships agree.
I look forward to the Government’s reply.
Lord Bach
No, I am not going to take the intervention.
ISIL’s modus operandi has been to attack minority groups—Christians, Yazidis, Turkmens, Shias, Kurds—on either side of the Syrian-Iraqi frontier. We heard today about the Kurds in northern Syria close to the Turkish border who have been made refugees. These are minorities that clearly cannot defend themselves and are often faced with a choice that is actually no choice—convert or die. Just to say it shows how completely unacceptable ISIL’s behaviour is and how it cannot remain unanswered.
However, even limited military intervention brings unforeseen and uncertain circumstances. If in a short while the other place supports the Motion before it, it will be supporting action to prevent at least the foreseeable and certain killings of Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, Christian and Yazidi Iraqis by ISIL, and this country will be supporting action that has broad support in the region and follows, as we have heard, a direct request from the democratically elected Government of Iraq.
I will repeat what the Opposition need to be satisfied of before supporting the Government’s proposal in another place: just cause; that the proposed action is a last resort; proportionality; a reasonable prospect of success; a legal base, of course; and broad regional support. On all those bases, we are happy to support the Government today but of course it is a mark of our freedoms and our democracy that the Opposition can and will continue to question, probe and scrutinise. We believe the Government have a duty in these circumstances to act in the national interest and it is the duty of the Opposition to support them when they are acting in the national interest, as they are in this case. I hope that in the time ahead—and I am sure that the Minister will be able to agree to this—the Government will ensure that the House is brought up to date at all times and that debates will be held where and when necessary.
The House will be united in its wholehearted support for the men and women of the Armed Forces who will take part in this perilous action with skill, courage and their characteristic devotion to duty—and, of course, our hearts should be with the families who they leave behind. As for ground troops, our view is that the Government are right to resist putting substantial combat forces back into Iraq. There does not seem to be much public or parliamentary support for such action. But, as importantly, it would undermine an essential point that needs to be made again and again to the Iraqi Government and their Sunni Arab neighbours—that this has to be their fight, if it is to be successful.
The fight against ISIL is, at its core, a struggle for the future of the Sunni world, so it is crucial that Sunni Governments have not only offered support but are participating in the multilateral mission. ISIL is too entrenched, well equipped and wealthy to be defeated by air power alone, and it can only be defeated on the ground with someone to replace it on the ground. Notwithstanding the very impressive capabilities of the Peshmerga, that will take time, given the current condition of the Iraqi army. Air strikes are essential to stem ISIL’s advance and degrade and destroy its operations and, at the very least, to contain it. However, we should be clear that these objectives of containment and disrupting and weakening ISIL must be in the service of creating the conditions for a new form of governance in Sunni Iraq. There must be an underpinning by a clear political strategy. The ultimate answer lies in local politics, not in external intervention.
The commencement to military action should not be a signal that the time for diplomacy is over. We have a duty to devise a comprehensive and effective political and diplomatic strategy for eliminating the threat of ISIL throughout the Middle East. So while today we have a clear legal, moral and political mandate to act to help to defeat ISIL in Iraq, we must also acknowledge that this mission brings with it unforeseen consequences and acknowledge that military action alone will not defeat ISIL. That is why the international community’s military response to the threat that ISIL poses is just one element of a long-term multinational political strategy in the region. As my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, it is necessary but not sufficient.
ISIL is a real and present danger, not just to the Middle East but to all of us. The world is too small for Britain to be able to just look the other way and say, “Well, this is really nothing to do with us”. This appalling mixture of medieval barbarism and state-of-the-art modern technology and finance has to be stood up to. Britain has to play its part in that enterprise. Force is not enough but, without it, does anyone seriously believe that ISIL can be contained, let alone defeated?
EU Council June 2014
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(9 years, 12 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
My noble friend is right to point us towards that paragraph which contains a number of important points. Her point about the European Council considering the process for the appointment of the President of the European Commission is set out in the way that she says. As it happens, that paragraph also says,
“the European Council noted that the concept of ever closer union allows for different paths of integration for different countries, allowing those that want to deepen integration to move ahead, while respecting the wish of those who do not want to deepen any further”.
That is quite a significant addition to the kind of wording one typically sees in these conclusions. That, in itself, is part of the answer to the point about the influence that Britain is still able to have. On some of my noble friend’s more specific points, if there is anything further I can say about the Select Committee, perhaps I will talk to her about that subsequently.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it is hard to find a normal person who knows why Mr Juncker’s job is so important? Might it create public support for the Government’s EU reforms if they were to reveal the unelected Commission’s role, with its monopoly to propose and execute all EU law and to issue regulations which are binding in all EU countries? Or could it be that the Government share the BBC’s fear that, if the British people understood just how irrelevant this their Parliament has become, and how rotten and anti-democratic the EU really is, their clamour to leave it might become irresistible? If our leaving the EU leads to its collapse, so what? What is the point of it now? One can see the point of NATO, the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation, but what is the point of the EU? Can the noble Lord tell us that?
Lord Hill of Oareford
Not in the time that we have available, when I know a lot of other noble Lords want to get in. It clearly is an important job, and that is why we were determined to try to make sure that the process for appointing the person followed the approaches that we thought were set out in the treaties. However, the Government’s position is not the same as that of UKIP. The Prime Minister intends to work extremely hard over the next three years to try to negotiate a package of measures that he will feel confident in putting to the British people in a referendum, which we aim to hold before the end of 2017.
G7
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That was meant as a compliment, my Lords. Obviously the way the noble Lord explained the recent change in the process was correct. However, I come back to the point that the Prime Minister felt that he needed to argue from a position of principle in relation to the approval process and the kind of person one should look for. I am sure that the noble Lord’s successors and others made the same arguments about how to go about doing it. The Prime Minister thought that the right way forward was to set out his case and argue for it.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, on Ukraine, what assessment did the Government make of President Putin’s offer in 2010 to set up a free trade area from Lisbon to Vladivostok? Would that not have been the way forward? Do the Government think that the EU was wise to reply by instead offering Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Ukraine free trade and association agreements, with their defence implications for the road to NATO, when Russia had been saying for years that it could not tolerate Crimea coming under the sphere of influence of Brussels or NATO? So, was it not the EU’s specific later offer to Ukraine that sparked the unfortunate situation in that country? If, as I suspect, the noble Lord replies that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was illegal under international law, would he care to comment on the legality of our disastrous invasion of Iraq, when at least China and France were against it in the Security Council?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I simply do not accept the underlying point that I suspect the noble Lord makes—namely, that the current travails in Ukraine and Crimea were caused by the EU. If one is looking to attribute blame—if that is the right word—for recent behaviour, it is far more straightforward to consider the illegal and unrecognised referendum in Crimea, the other action that was taken and the support given to people to destabilise it than to lay the blame on the EU. I note the wish expressed by the people of Ukraine to have a closer relationship with countries in the West, which was restated in the recent election.
European Council and Nuclear Security Summit
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I can tell my noble friend that those lessons are being taken on board, which is why the range of measures that has been taken has been taken. The Government have sought a balanced and phased response to the situation as it has developed, ratcheting up the pressure over time as necessary. On the build-up to the current situation—what happened at which point—the truth is that it developed extremely quickly, and the EU and others have had to respond equally quickly as it has developed. However, I understand the burden of my noble friend’s points; that is why NATO and the security that it can offer are so important in this context.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, further to the answer that the noble Lord has just given, is it not true that Russia had made clear for years that it could not and would not tolerate Crimea coming under the sphere of influence of the European Union? Was Brussels therefore wise to offer Ukraine an eastern association agreement, complete with defence aspects? Surely the EU has thus caused the present crisis, and not Russia.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I know that the noble Lord is often ready to blame the EU for a whole range of matters. However, it is hard to argue in this case that the situation that has developed, with the aggression shown by Russia and its breaking of international treaties freely entered into in the past, can be laid at the door of the EU.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, was not in the Chamber for the Statement that was given by the Minister at the beginning. It is therefore a bit rich that he should come in.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, on the importance of making available non-Russian sources of hydrocarbons, what thought was given to and what proposals made about the importance of Georgia? If we wish Kazakh, Azeri or Caspian hydrocarbons to be available to Europe, it is essential, bearing in mind the impasse between Azerbaijan and Armenia, that new pipelines through Georgia are made available so that those hydrocarbons can flow without going through Russian territory.
European Council and Afghanistan
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(10 years, 12 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
The noble Baroness will not be surprised to know that I do not have those percentages in my head, but I will see what I can find out about them and I will write to her about whatever I uncover. There has been progress in the way that she said in drawing attention to those figures. She is right to draw attention to the guarantees and commitments about the future and the right of women to vote and participate in elections. All I am able to say is that I know that we are giving as much encouragement and support as we can to make sure that that process goes forward before the elections. For those who, like her, want to make sure that that situation persists in the future, the most powerful lever is the £4 billion of aid that outside countries give to Afghanistan, but we would all be foolish if we were to pretend that there was a simple thing that we could do to guarantee it. Like her, the Government are very concerned, and I know that the Foreign Office and DfID are doing everything they can to argue in the way that I know the noble Baroness would expect them to argue.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, does not hope attempt to triumph yet again over experience in this Statement? The Prime Minister says:
“we agreed to scrap unnecessary EU regulation that ties up our businesses in red tape when they should be growing and creating jobs”.
He goes on to announce the setting up of yet another business task force,
“to take a fresh and ambitious look at the impact of EU regulation on our companies”,
and so on.
What does the noble Lord say about the need for unanimity among all 28 members before we can retrieve a comma from the treaties of Rome, let alone a regulation or a power already ceded? I have written a few of those on the back of an envelope. What does this do for immigration, rubbish collection, post offices, light bulbs, car premiums, working time, our fishing industry, and financial supervision for the ruin of the City of London? Is this not just more wishful thinking, which is completely meaningless while we stay in the European Union?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is the voice of experience, I will have to be the voice of hope. I take his point that one has to keep grinding away at these things over a long period of time. History suggests that, as was the case with our rebate negotiations, one has to keep on battling away.
On the point about reducing regulations, this was agreed, I think, in the Council back in March. Some small progress has been made by the Commission. However, the Prime Minister was very clear that the process was not as fast or as extensive as he would like, which is why he made another charge at the Council last week. I think it is worth setting up our own task force—I probably share some of the noble Lord’s scepticism about all sorts of task forces everywhere—to try to come up with some ideas of our own to show the way, looking specifically at the effect of regulations, how they might be reduced and how that might lead to more jobs, particularly in the context of young unemployed people, as we discussed earlier.
Woolwich and the EU Council
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
The noble Lord raises two very pertinent points, both in terms of schools—madrassahs—and universities, where there are clearly issues. It is right that the task force set up will want to talk to community leaders about these things, and I am sure that it will want to look into the kind of broad issues to which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, refers.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
The Statement says that the murder of Drummer Rigby was a “betrayal of Islam”, and that there is nothing in Islam which justifies acts of terror. However, since 9/11 some 107,000 people have been killed and some 174,000 injured, most of them Muslim, in many thousands of attacks, the perpetrators of which claim Islam and the Koran as their inspiration. In my Oral Question this afternoon, therefore, I asked the Government whether they would encourage a gathering of great Islamic clerics—the grand muftis and the ulema—to agree to issue a fatwa against the jihadists, to cast them out of Islam and to declare that they are no longer Muslim. I regret to say that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, failed to answer that Question. Would the Leader of the House now care to do so? Surely this huge problem can be cured only from within the Muslim community.
Lord Hill of Oareford
It is clearly the case, as the noble Lord says, that the Muslim community needs to be very closely involved in everything we do to address this problem. In many of these cases, particularly in the recent case of poor Lee Rigby, it is encouraging that the Muslim community has been very clear in its condemnation of what happened. I am not sure that it is within my gift, powerful though the Leader of the House is in theory, to convene a global gathering of muftis. I find it hard enough to convene a gathering of three or four Peers in your Lordships’ House. However, I am sure that my noble friend Lady Warsi will have heard the noble Lord’s point again.