Black Lives Matter: Protests

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I commend the noble Baroness on all that she has done in securing a Windrush Day and on the work she has done on the Windrush monument at Waterloo to commemorate those people who arrived here to rebuild this country after the war. On a national slavery monument, I do not know whether the noble Baroness knows the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool—I bet she does. I am racking my brains to remember whether there is actually a statue outside it, but positioned as it is, in the very heart of a city built in many ways on slavery, it is a reminder to us all of why black lives matter.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con) [V]]

My Lords, do not take down statues; take down racism. These were the words of Sir Geoff Palmer, Scotland’s first black professor and currently emeritus professor of life sciences at Heriot-Watt University. I agree with these sentiments and believe that the statues should remain, but they should have a clear description attached detailing the contributions made by the subjects and how they achieved their wealth and status. When I worked as a young surgeon in Ghana in the 1970s, I was struck by a bust of Queen Victoria on a pedestal in Victoria Park in Cape Coast—the very place where slaves left to go to America. Ghanaians may have many reasons for wanting to remove the bust of Queen Victoria—a queen who represented Britain at the height of its imperial power. That statue remains because it is part of Ghana’s history. We should leave the statues where they are but explain why they are there. Will my noble friend undertake to do this?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend. To take things down is to erase history, and erasing history is absolutely not what we should be about in educating our children about the misdemeanours of the past, as well as the great things of the past—the people who built our country. He is absolutely right: we should take down racism but not legacies of our history, which seek to educate us all. I pass many statues in and around Westminster. Some of them are offensive to me. I understand why others are there and they are a learning point for history.

UK Opt-in to the Proposed Council Decision on the Relocation of Migrants within the EU (EUC Report)

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, like other Peers, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, for securing the debate. The UK has a unique role in Europe in that, like France, it has a significant colonial past with positive and negative connotations. The positive legacy is that the UK still has many friends in Africa, in particular sub-Saharan Africa, from where many migrants emanate. I shall focus on Africa as the continent I know best, because, as a migrant of some 63 years in this country, I probably know more about it than most. Of the three countries that have been referred to as being eligible for admission under the scheme, Eritrea, in the Horn of Africa, is the only African country.

However, many from west Africa are undoubtedly economic migrants. Many of them started to go to countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Egypt to better themselves, improve their family and send money back home. They have come not only from francophone countries but from anglophone countries in west Africa.

The problems that have occurred in Libya with the change in government—in fact, no government in some respects—the warfare, the abuse and the persecution, have meant that those who went there as economic migrants now choose to leave as persecuted people, in the same way as many in Syria and Iraq. We must make the point that there are those who are genuinely fleeing oppression, and that needs to be taken into account in dealing with them.

Our focus, naturally, has been on people around the Mediterranean rim. We have heard in an evidence session even today, from Franck Düvell, a senior researcher from the University of Oxford, that 90% of those who embark on journeys to Europe succeed, with 1% dying on the way. So for a migrant, a 99% success rate is a risk worth taking. To them, the prize at the end is what matters.

If we reflect on the fact that in this House we often say that hard cases make bad law, we must also be careful that we do not let the tragic incidents which have occurred—and they are indeed tragic—divert us from the fact that we need to get to the solution via the causes of the problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, we need to deal with the causes not just the symptoms. The Spanish Interior Minister, Senor Diaz, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal yesterday as saying:

“It’s like when you have a leaky roof: Instead of fixing it, we distribute water between the rooms”.

Surely, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, identified, we would do better to work with the sub-Saharan African states to fix the leaky roof.

The UK is one of five EU member states in the Khartoum process and should use its influence to bring greater pressure to bear on the African Union, which also has responsibility in this matter. We talk about the pull factor but there is also a push factor and in order to get a push factor you have to have countries that do not have secure borders or arrangements to ensure that their people are not persecuted or made uncomfortable about staying in those countries. The African Union has responsibilities in relation to migration, both regular and irregular. Sudan enacted a law against human trafficking in March 2014, yet conflict in South Sudan is a major factor in migration, some of which passes through Sudan to Europe.

At the meeting of the African Union in Khartoum in October 2014, the African Union Commission Director for Social Affairs acknowledged that despite action plans in 2006 and 2009, human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants remains a “caustic challenge”, particularly in the Horn of Africa. He said:

“Many Member States in the Sub-region are yet to ratify the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and/or fully implement it with national legislation in their respective domain”.

The UN has been mentioned today and certainly the UNCHR has offered to help but I believe that this is a challenge for the UN itself to deal with. There are issues and problems with the UN. We know that in the Security Council there is disagreement between the various parties about this issue and therefore very little has happened. But dealing with many of the conflicts in the zones and areas that we have talked about is the way to address the problem.

We have talked about the Horn of Africa. There is also Niger, which is a major transit point for many migrants. The reason is the problems we have seen recently with Boko Haram in Nigeria and many people being displaced from that country to surrounding areas. My questions to the Minister are: what input have the UK Government had in the discussions with the EU members of the Khartoum process? What is our response to the action plan for 2014-17 set by the EU-Africa Summit in 2014, which focuses on the following priorities: trafficking in human beings; the diaspora, which is one of the pull factors; mobility and labour migration, including intra-African mobility, which I referred to earlier; international protection, which we feel is a right for all those who migrate; and irregular migration, which is the basis of our discussion today? We have heard much about the pull and push factors driving migration but I would like to know what we can do in the long term to contain the problem, which can be solved only through conflict resolution.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has demonstrated why anecdote is no substitute for good research. I heard that word used, so it is important to ensure that any use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, for which I have some sympathy, has to be on the basis of clinical research which has been properly carried out and peer reviewed. NICE is a good organisation and I am sure that it would be prepared to take that on board.

In response to a Question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, last Wednesday, I did make the point that there is evidence from America that troops coming back from Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting in terrible nightmares about their battle experiences have improved using cannabis. However, it is still something which needs to be subject to properly controlled clinical trials.

Something that is often done during a clinical trial is to put the drug out to people on a named-patient basis. Once the clinical trials have been done, one way to institute this is to put in place legislation whereby medication can be given on a named-patient basis. However, I cannot accept it as a blanket way of dealing with these problems.

[Baroness Meacher]

I should like to make one simple point, which is that I agree absolutely with the noble Lord that what we need are clinical trials on medicinal cannabis. The problem is that researchers do not want to go into this area because the substance is illegal. Getting cannabis in is a tremendous problem because it takes a long time to get the licences. I do not know, but there are problems which the noble Lord may know more about than I. However, if adults and children in particular who are in severe pain and distress could be prescribed medicinal cannabis on a named-patient basis, that would be a good option. But certainly we need to get on with a lot of work on clinical trials.

Drugs: Cannabis

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right in tracing this back to a long debate in the Select Committee, the work of which I pay tribute to. That was, of course, taken into account in the MHRA’s decision. Should there be new drugs of this classification which have proven benefits for patients, they should, of course, make an application and undergo clinical trials in the same way.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, although I do not accept the need to legislate for cannabis, the evidence from America—particularly from Colorado, which has recently legislated for its use—shows that the use of medical marijuana may well be of benefit to soldiers and veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders, and nightmares in particular. If the evidence proves to be robust, there is a case for clinical trials to be undertaken in this country to see if that actually is of benefit because we have many troops who have come back from Afghanistan and suffer from these conditions.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend and other noble Lords are experts in the medical world, and I am realising very quickly that the problem is that there are many different types of medical research and science, some bits of which are contradictory. For example, the Institute of Psychiatry and Cancer Research have taken a different view on this. That is why we need to have a process which clearly and openly evaluates the introduction of these drugs, primarily to ensure that people are kept safe.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, measures to end smoking in cars while children are present did not appear in the gracious Speech. After the large vote in favour of the measure in the Commons in February this year by 376 votes to 107, it might have been assumed that it was a done deal and a job done and that legislation would follow swiftly. Here I must declare an interest as the author of the Private Member’s Bill introduced in 2012 which proposed a ban on smoking in cars when children are present.

The Government are to be congratulated on tackling the two great obstacles in the way of reducing harm to children through smoking—that is, the introduction of plain or standard packs of cigarettes and smoking in cars. In the face of stiff opposition from the tobacco industry, the Government have shown courage and steadfastness in pursuing their strategy to reduce harm from smoking. In order to have the evidence to support their proposals, they invited Sir Cyril Chantler to undertake an independent review of standardised packaging of tobacco. It endorsed the findings of the University of Stirling in 2012 and, after careful consideration, the Public Health Minister, Jane Ellison MP, said that,

“if standardised packaging were introduced it would be very likely to have a positive impact on public health”,

and that these health benefits could include health benefits for children.

So why are we still waiting for legislation? The Government are committed to undertaking a six-week consultation on the draft regulations. There is then a bureaucratic process that involves a regulatory impact assessment, notification to the European Union, and another six months before the process is completed. We are now 11 months from a general election. Can my noble friend assure me that there will be no further delay and that we can expect legislation before the machinery of government turns its focus on to the election? One can expect continued lobbying from the tobacco industry to frustrate the proposed legislation, which has cross-party support and the overwhelming support of both Houses of Parliament. I urge the Government not to let this prize for which they have worked hard slip through their fingers, like the sands in an egg timer.

I welcome the intention to introduce legislation to stop female genital mutilation—again, a further assault on our children.

Public health is increasingly getting the recognition it deserves, and it is strange for me as a surgeon to be promoting it. However, in developing countries the burden of disease has shifted from infectious diseases to chronic conditions. The level of infectious diseases is, in fact, falling in developing countries. In an article in the Lancet on 31 May, the work of a new health group, of which I am patron, tasked with introducing essential surgery in developing countries, is featured. It has produced a film entitled “The Right to Heal”, which identifies the surgical challenges facing public health over the next 30 years. The paradigm shift to conditions that require surgery is clear: trauma and injury, burns, obstructed labour and fistulae, appendicitis, cataracts, hernia, club foot, and cleft lip and palate. These conditions affect millions of people around the globe and can all be treated by surgery.

As the millennium goals come to an end in 2015, we need a Government to lobby the World Health Organisation and the World Health Assembly to pass a resolution on the use of essential surgery. The Lancet quotes a former WHO director-general, HT Mahler, who asked for an internationally agreed list of essential surgical procedures to support primary healthcare and help countries to decide on their own lists and the related training and equipment that they would need. He concluded:

“The alternative for most people in the world is either the kind of selected essential surgery I am advocating or absolutely nothing at all”.