Iraq

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Cormack

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hurd, in a very perceptive speech, contrasted today’s debate with the one that we had in August last year, when both he and I, and almost every other Member of your Lordships’ House, voiced grave concern at the prospect of going into Syria without a clearly defined objective or outcome. Today is very different. It is a sobering thought, incidentally, that had we decided differently last year, we might have boosted these wretched ISIL people into a position of even greater power in Syria.

We are now setting our hands to an extraordinary task. In the words of that great prayer by Sir Walter Raleigh, we have to see this thing “until it be throughly finished”. This is not a case of sending just a few sorties; we are in for the long haul. Although I risk the rebuke of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, we will need boots on the ground, be they Arab boots or other military boots—

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Cormack]

No, I cannot give way in this short debate. We will need boots on the ground—military boots and, as the noble Lord rightly pointed out, other boots.

Briefly, if we are to win the hearts and minds of people in the Middle East, those who are suffering desperate privation and those who will be bereaved or maimed as a result of air strikes—that is bound to happen—we must have great emphasis on humanitarian aid. I point up a little contrast. Yesterday, I stood on the East Green of Lincoln Cathedral, where there was a dedication of a plot that, next year, is to bring forth a wonderful garden of bulbs to commemorate Operation Manna. At the end of the Second World War, the people of Holland were in desperate plight. They were starving. Queen Wilhelmina said, “We shall merely be liberating corpses if something is not done”. Although we had to negotiate with the Germans—the war was still on—so that the low-flying aircraft were not shot down, the relief supplies were delivered and the people survived. Yesterday, in a very moving ceremony, we had the Netherlands ambassador paying tribute to the Germans in the presence of their military attaché, saying, “Even though then we were at war, those with whom we had nothing in common and who had inflicted terrible disaster upon us, at that particular point, held back”.

I make that comment and give that illustration merely to point up a moral and to adorn a tale. I hold no brief for the Assad regime—I do not think that there can be any Member of your Lordships’ House who does —but, without repeating the Arab proverb cited by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, all I would say is that we must have unrestrained conflict against these barbarians if we are to bring them to heel and we must ensure that, as the wasteland is liberated, we help those who seek to survive on it as much as we conceivably can.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Cormack

Thursday 14th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I said at its Second Reading that I commend the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for its simplicity, its clarity and, above all, its good sense. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has said, Parliament Square is not an item on its own; it is part of a whole. If you see something looking like that, it reflects on the whole, and it reflects on all of us that, for years, the Houses between them have proved completely incapable of solving something apparently simple. Therefore, the public will ask, “What hope have they got of solving anything more complicated?”. This House and the surrounds of Parliament are cleaned and prepared every day for the following day. The beauty of the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is that it enables the whole area, including the square, to be cleaned and prepared for every day and does not allow it to be traduced for purposes for which it is neither designed nor suitable.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Marlesford has said. I took part in the Second Reading of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and briefly intervened on my noble friend Lord Marlesford, but I have been speaking on this issue for many years. I raised it first in the other place when the squalid encampment first appeared in Parliament Square. All noble Lords, I am sure, believe in freedom of speech and freedom for peaceful demonstration, but that is not what we are discussing; we are discussing the defacement of a world heritage site that is the centre of our parliamentary democracy. It should not be beyond the wit of the Government to come up with a solution but, sadly, the last time a Government tried—a Government from another party—they failed. They produced draconian regulations and the squalid encampment remained.

I fear that my noble friend Lord Marlesford is only too correct in pointing to the deficiencies in the Bill as it is currently before your Lordships’ House: placing the duties of lost property custodians upon the Metropolitan Police is not the best way of using its all-too-depleted manpower. When my noble friend the Minister replies, I hope she will acknowledge the unworkability—and, indeed, the absurdity—of the proposals to which my noble friend has alluded. I hope she will accept the amendments of my noble friend Lord Marlesford. If she feels for technical reasons that she cannot do that, I hope she will agree to come back at Third Reading with a government amendment, having discussed the matter with the noble Lords, Lord Marlesford, Lord Tyler and others, and come up with a solution that we can all accept.

I have absolutely no desire to go into the Lobby against my noble friend the Minister, but unless she can either accept the amendment or promise to come back on Third Reading, after consultation with my noble friend Lord Marlesford and others, with a sensible and workable solution, the House will have no alternative but to express its concern in the only way that it can.