Council of Europe

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, I am sure there is. The noble Lord is quite right: the Council of Europe covers about 800 million people, which is wider than the European Union. Of course there can be a constructive interchange and the work of each body can be promoted by the other to their mutual benefit.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the so-called democratic deficit is developing in this country and in wider Europe, perhaps to be greatly exacerbated by the eurozone crisis? Is he aware that 2013 is to be the EU year of citizens in action? In that regard, will he assure the House that citizenship education will remain part of the core curriculum, as it has been since 2002, given that there are now questions as to whether it might be taken out of the compulsory core curriculum?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I very much hope—it is a hope rather than an assurance—that all those involved in these great institutions will work in that way. This switches the commentary from the Council of Europe to the European Union, which of course is different, but we all look back to the Laeken declaration, which urged the European Union to bring itself closer to the citizenry, and the Council of Europe is of course on the same sort of track. This is an age of the empowerment of citizens and, as some people say, of empowerment of the street, sometimes with good results and sometimes with less good results. In all cases, empowerment of the citizen, responsibility of the citizen, education and bringing home the potential role of active citizenry remain absolutely vital.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is clearly one of the necessary cessations that must occur. However, one must take a balanced approach and recognise that it goes hand in hand with an acceleration of the easing of the supply of provisions into Gaza, where conditions have been horrific. These things all move together. If one concentrates on just one transgression on one side, progress is inevitably halted. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right that one of the essential conditions is for one of the key parties concerned—Hamas—to desist, or to persuade minorities that it may control to desist, from shooting rockets into Israeli towns, wounding and damaging completely innocent people.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that power is given to the extremist wing of Hamas by the relentless Israeli colonisation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and that without a cessation of that at least there is no chance that the moderate majority within Hamas will be able to bring about the conditions that he mentions? At the same time, will he urge the Israeli Government to observe the results of the forthcoming Palestinian elections and not scupper them, as they did in 2006 by kidnapping 26 Hamas MPs?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Balanced handling of settlements and the Jerusalem problem is at the centre of the whole situation. Urging the Israeli Government to proceed in a way that will not scupper—in my noble friend’s words—any progress is something that we do in our constant dialogue with the Israeli authorities. We will certainly continue along those lines.

European Union Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

We did not promise that. We promised that we would have a referendum if there were a written constitution. The noble Lord may not have sat through those debates, but I am afraid that the House agreed with me and not with him on that point.

Finding compromises and striking balances is at the heart of what this House does both as part of the British legislative process and in its role as one of the key checks and balances in the British constitution. The House knows a compromise and a balance when it sees them but this Bill is a confusion not a compromise, a botch not a balance. Britain deserves better than this Bill. Europe deserves better. Liberal Democrat Members of this House who have a proud record on Europe—including those who, 30 years ago this week, left the party on the Benches behind me largely on this issue—certainly deserve better. We shall try to give that to them.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, the noble Baroness made the comment earlier that she did not think that the Bill would help reconnect British public opinion with the EU. What does she suggest would?

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

During our debates on the European Union in the past, the noble Lord has himself put forward quite a few suggestions on how there could be better reconnection. There could be better reconnection through schools and in the sort of things that the noble Lord has suggested in the past, which I readily acknowledge were not taken up, of getting more information to people about the way in which the European Union can work to their advantage. The sheer complexity of what we are being asked to do and the potential proliferation of referendums under this Bill—if there are not referendums, that will be because of the use of the blocking mechanism—is not going to reconnect the people of this country with Europe at all. I hope that the noble Lord agrees with me.

Egypt

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Of course, the dangers are there. Revolutions and massive street protests can take unpredictable paths. I think that the analogy with the Peacock Throne and the fall of the Shah is not strong. There has been deep recognition for some time that the pattern of rule in Egypt and the far from fair and free elections conducted last year were paving stones on the route to trouble and that, although one cannot always assess the exact moment of conflagration, there were dangers. I said earlier that the power of electronic media, including the internet, in mobilising people and protests at lightning speed should not be underestimated. Some people have mentioned the machinery of Twitter, Facebook and all those other things. They can convey and gather information and organise people at fantastic speed.

The dangers were seen. Now the task, not for any individual country but for all responsible states men and women around the world, is to see that the pattern unfurls in a moderate way and that the more extreme elements—the younger hotheads in the militant Muslim Brotherhood, the jihadists, and so on—do not hold sway. My view is that there are many sensible, wise and talented people in Egypt and a strong middle class who, although they might be frustrated by past events, have a strong enough voice to give us some hope that moderation will prevail.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I ask the Minister to get his crystal ball out on what might be one of the more certain and important consequences of what is happening in Egypt. Exactly a year ago, I was with the Foreign Minister of Egypt and a party of parliamentarians from 15 European countries. We were en route to Gaza and could get in only via Egypt. It strikes me in particular that Egypt's alliance with Israel in effect to keep the lid on Gaza cannot possibly prevail in the aftermath of what is happening. Whatever Government come in, they seem almost certain to want to review that rather loveless alliance. Is the Foreign Office having due regard to the possible consequences of what seems to me to be almost inevitable? I think, for example, of the border between Gaza and Egypt. As the Minister will know, the Egyptians built the wall along that border only a year or two back, and it has been tunnelled under relentlessly.

One would hope that whatever the immediate consequences in that dimension, there might be the prospect—one hopes and prays—of a balance of voices within Israel itself shifting more to that part of Israeli opinion, political and non-political, that desperately wants to break out of the box that Israeli policy is currently in. That is in the hope that in due time—I realise that these are hugely complicated matters and that it takes all sides to tango—one could move away from the continued colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and into a positive mode that could in the end see a general resolution of this ghastly combination of factors. I ask the Minister whether the Foreign Office is alive to all this—I am sure it is—and whether it will be able to exert some constructive influence and pressure to reach a positive outcome.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend. Foreign Office Ministers, particularly junior ones, have to be quite careful when it comes to taking out a crystal ball and making bold forecasts, because this is a particularly fluid situation. My noble friend has done a pretty good job himself in raising certain crystal-ball issues, and these are very much in my mind and that of my noble and honourable friends and their advisers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is absolutely right that we now have to look at implications and try to be one step ahead of the unfolding scene. Gaza and the Israel-Palestine situation, oil and energy supplies throughout the region, and the now increasingly unfashionable pattern of nepotism—which seemed to cause so much anger in Tunis and was clearly a feature in the riots in Cairo, and which was a feature in other contexts as well—all need to be looked at, together with the position of other countries all around the region.

Even in Lebanon we have a fragile situation, with a new Prime Minister who will we hope command sufficient support all round to achieve a delicate balance there. There are issues of potential turbulence in many other regions as well. This means not only that we are already in a new international landscape but that we now, as a result of what has been happening for the last few weeks, have to have a further reassessment. I can therefore assure my noble friend that every effort will be made to peer into the future—it sometimes seems very dark indeed—and to make proper provision for the interests of this country in a new and changing world.

Israel: Illegal Settlers

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is urging short answers, so the answer is yes, of course there are two sides.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a more fundamental obstacle to a peace settlement than the settlements in the West Bank, which occupy some 5 per cent or so of that territory, is the failure of Arab states to introduce into their own countries the rule of law and the right to freedom of expression which would promote a real debate in those countries about the true interests of the unfortunate Palestinian people?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I feel that we need to go to the next Question.

Gaza Flotilla

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I agree with that and hope that nothing that I said earlier contradicts that view. Israel must urgently find and adopt a better way of limiting any arms and bombs going into Gaza, while at the same time providing for the needs of the people of Gaza, which are desperate and urgent. It is also urgent that the Hamas rocketeers stop firing rockets into Israel. I used the word “civilised” to indicate that, if both sides move away from this violent brutality, we will get urgent progress.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the rockets fired from Gaza into Sderot and other places. I urge him to listen to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and to the quarter or third of the population of Israel who view Israel’s strategy and policy, in particular the colonisation of the West Bank, as being totally self-defeating for its long-term security, totally abhorrent in terms of human rights and totally against international law. I was in Gaza in January, for the third time in eight years. Some debates that one listens to in this Chamber—I mean no disrespect to any noble Lord—seem to be based on a misunderstanding of the abjectness of the condition of not only the Gazans but also the people in the West Bank and of the ritual, systemic humiliation and violence to which they are subject. It is all very well talking about a few home-made rockets—and I do not defend them—but there is an occupying army in the West Bank and there was a pulverisation of Gaza a year ago, in which 1,400 people were killed as against 13. I urge the Government to get real about these issues and not to pretend that there is parity between one side and the other.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think that my noble friend’s views are very widely shared. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who rightly said that there are a large number of people within Israel, as well as among those who look on and admire Israel from around the world and believe that it has every right to exist as a nation in security, who feel that its present policies are certainly not achieving that aim.