Black Lives Matter

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg [V]]

My Lords, I agree that there is injustice that needs to be tackled. We are tolerant and open, but more can always be done to help people realise their potential. There is a lot to what the marchers are saying; action is needed across the board as part of the levelling-up agenda. That starts with education and job opportunities, but there are also health disparities that need to be addressed, as Covid has shown.

[Lord Robathan (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the appalling death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, at the hands of a policeman who has now been charged with murder, cannot be used as an excuse for illegal and violent behaviour here in the UK. Nor can understandable strong feelings about racism and discrimination in America—or indeed in Asia, Africa, Europe and the UK—be any excuse. Will my noble friend the Minister ensure that the small number of anarchists and irresponsible yobs who attacked and injured brave and blameless police officers doing their duty in London, painted graffiti on Churchill’s statue and others or committed other illegal acts in Bristol or elsewhere are identified and prosecuted?

Covid-19: International Response

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, in my brief two minutes I will look at the situation in some countries abroad and the impact of the lockdown, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. We have heard about China from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra. It appears that the virus started in November last year—but, of course, nobody knows at all. Totalitarian regimes such as China, Russia and Iran do not let us know what is actually happening there. There is a lot of fake news and a lack of knowledge. I am afraid that—as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, pointed out—with deficient medical services we do not know what is happening in Africa either.

Will the lockdown prove to have been futile? Without a vaccine, will the virus resurge? Nobody knows who has had it. I know so many people who think they have had the virus. We heard an interesting example from the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. I have another example, among many others. An overweight 60 year-old friend went into hospital for kidney stones. He was tested, as everybody was, and was told he had the virus without any symptoms. The testing is not entirely reliable anyway.

According to the figures, perhaps 316,000 deaths around the world so far have been linked to CV-19. This is awful—every one is tragic—but it is not callous to point out that some 60 million people will die anyway around the world this year. I suggest that the lockdown, both nationally and internationally, may prove much more damaging in terms of poverty, civil rights—as we have just heard—and death than just taking sensible precautions. We seem to have suspended our critical faculties. We should all remember the consequences of the great depression 90 years ago.

Coronavirus: British Citizens Imprisoned Abroad

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are calling on the Iranian Government to immediately give detained British-Iranian dual nationals access to appropriate medical treatment and our colleagues in Tehran will continue to lobby for the temporary release of all our detainees in Evin Prison. Of course, it is important that we support Iran as best we can. We have seen an alarming increase in the number of cases there, with 523 confirmed in the previous 24 hours. That is why it is so important that the E3 supports Iran in the way that it is.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure everyone in the House has huge sympathy with the appalling predicament of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her, frankly, unreasonable imprisonment. On the broader issue of coronavirus—I look forward to listening to the Chief Medical Officer when he comes to us on Wednesday—while this is of course a very serious outbreak, it seems that there is a danger of overreacting. I am in the danger zone, as are most of your Lordships because all old men aged over 60 are in it. But, on average, some 17,000 people die of flu every winter, yet so far we have had no deaths at all from coronavirus in this country and the numbers around the world are slim. Can the Minister reassure me that we are not overreacting?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree that it is absolutely right that we should get the balance of our reaction correct. Of course, public safety is our top priority and I thank all those already working around the clock so that we are ready at home and can ensure the safety of UK nationals abroad. Our approach in this country is being guided by the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and independent experts. We will continue to work closely with the World Health Organization and the international community to ensure that we get our response to this outbreak right.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Lord Robathan Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Tuesday 4th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, because I agree with most of what he said—which, I think he will accept, has not always been the case. My noble friend the Minister has a galaxy of learned and expert people to speak on this Bill. It seems to me that the Government should be grateful that they are getting legal advice from three very learned retired judges. It would cost the Government a great deal of money if they had to ask for the advice, so I think she should be grateful.

My contribution will be much more modest. I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who speaks with great authority and expertise on these things, that I do not see that we need to be particularly concerned that China, let us say, should be allowed to extradite people under this measure. Given the problems that China has had with Hong Kong, which started off with extradition from Hong Kong to China, we would be unlikely to take that sort of decision. It seems to me, and others have said, that the Bill rightly and sensibly caters for the changes to the European arrest warrant now that we have left. The 24 hours within which somebody arrested under this has to be seen by a judge is reasonable. I agree with the noble and learned Lord—I will come to this later—that not all countries share the same standards as us. That also applies to European Union countries.

I support the Bill because it is sensible and very modest. So far it is certainly countries that we trust to abide by the rule of law that are included. For instance, Australia, New Zealand and Canada all take a great deal of their legal systems from us anyway—so, given the situation, it is not controversial.

Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 was about the European arrest warrant. I will concentrate on that, because it is more controversial. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I think the European arrest warrant can be hugely valuable. For instance, it gets nasty criminals out of the UK to face justice—paedophiles, drug dealers, murderers, whoever. That is all to be welcomed. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said that in 2017 there were 15,000 or so requests to the UK; I thought it was more like 17,000, but I may be wrong. I think we issued fewer than 400, but with my limited knowledge of the internet I had some trouble getting the correct details.

I will concentrate on Romania, which I think is the country that issues the greatest or second-greatest number of European arrest warrants in the European Union. That may be a reflection of crime in Romania. I will concentrate first on the general situation and then on one case, which shows why we should be very wary of believing that, just because a country is in the European Union, it follows all the rules and values that we have in this country and follows the rule of law as we do. We assume that because a country is in the European Union, it abides by the rule of law.

I will not mention the case I know of for two reasons. First, it is sub judice and, although I believe that under parliamentary privilege I could mention it, it would be improper to do so. Secondly, I used to have—I stress that I used to have—a financial interest in the case, in that I was advising somebody on this. That ended several months ago, but again it would be straying into difficult territory if I were to mention the case in particular.

The issues I will raise now on Romania have all been covered in the press. I start with a newspaper article from 10 April last year. I mention only this one—there are many others—because its headline is: “Romania’s child traffickers walk free to mock the British police”. It was an operation called Golf, and the person in charge of it said:

“Let me tell you, there was tonnes of evidence against that gang … Dozens of child witnesses were interviewed, and we found hundreds of forged birth certificates. It beggars belief that all 26 suspects have walked free. On our side, we secured convictions, but Romania has not … If we cannot get Romanian courts to convict the most serious crimes it has an impact across the whole of Europe.”


The case that I know about concerns political interference and deaths in prison. The Prime Minister of Romania stated on television before an arrest that an arrest would happen. I think we would all agree that that would be completely improper in this country. The same person died in prison. That was surely political interference. I would say so, but so does the European Bar Association—the Fédération des Barreaux d’Europe—which mentioned in a resolution on 19 April 2018

“the right of access of Romanian citizens to a free and independent court and about the situation of judges, prosecutors and lawyers from Romania, noting that there is an interference with the independence of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and the administration of justice due to the intervention of Romanian Intelligence Service”

and called on the justice organisations to “cease the secret protocols” with the intelligence services

“and to restore independence of the judicial system by destroying also secret Protocols and … respect the right of Romanian citizens to a fair trial.”

If that was said about the United Kingdom, we would rightly be horrified.

The issue of prison conditions is more difficult. We would wish to send back a murderer from Romania, but I note that the European Court of Human Rights said some two and a half years ago that the detention conditions in Romanian prisons are in breach of the convention and

“a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

As I said, the case with which I am dealing involved somebody dying in custody because he was not given proper treatment. In his judgment on that case, which, again, I will not name, a UK judge said not two years ago, after the events I have cited, that Romania was a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and that he was

“entirely satisfied that it will abide by its Convention obligations”,

which the European Bar Association and the European Court of Human Rights did not agree with.

I ask my noble friend the Minister: should we see some changes to the European arrest warrant, as I believe is likely, could we look very closely at the conditions in each country in Europe and at how they follow the rule of law? It is not just Romania, but I will not spread my wings too far on this. We need to make sure that other European countries are abiding by the rule of law as we see it before we admit them into what is already working under the European arrest warrant.

Aid: Anti-Corruption Measures

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall perforce be brief speaking in the gap, but I am grateful to my noble friend Lord McInnes for calling this debate. I have limited, and rather outdated, experience of the developing world. I used to be chairman of an organisation called the Halo Trust, which was and may still be the world’s largest charity engaged in lifting landmines and clearing the debris of conflict from the developing world. I saw the work it did and was very impressed. I was also a founder member of the International Development Committee in the other place and spent six or seven years on it. I saw dedicated people doing excellent work on our behalf.

I believe we have a Christian duty to help those less well off than ourselves. I suspect that the right reverend Prelate, and perhaps others in the room, would agree with me, because we are extraordinarily well off and we must help other people. However, I shall give a little story. I am older than I would wish, but 50 years and more ago, at school, we had an excellent organisation called Brothers to All Men. I do not know whether it still exists. It was a Christian charity that dug wells in the developing world for those who had no access to clean water. I was so impressed that I put pennies, or perhaps even shillings, in a money box—do noble Lords remember money boxes?—to support that charity. When I was on the DfID committee—this was 15-odd years ago—we saw wells that had been dug with British aid money around the developing world.

I now see advertisements on the television imploring me to give money to charities to dig wells around the developing world. The one point I wish to add to the debate, which I have much enjoyed listening to, which perhaps the Minister will answer is: what has been going on for 50 years? Travelling around the developing world when on the DfID committee, I saw the tanks, the fighter aircraft, the conflict and the Mercedes cars provided for politicians, but I have still seen people who have no access to clean drinking water. That should have been happening through their Governments over the past 50 years.

I know it is a very difficult situation, but—I say to my noble friend Lord McInnes, that this is what the debate is all about—what can the Government do to ensure that the countries we assist with every good intention actually spend that money on helping the people they are meant to help? That includes all Governments around the world, including in developing countries.

Brexit: Outstanding Commitments

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Robathan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what agreement, if any, has been reached with the European Union concerning payment in the event of a no-deal Brexit of £39 billion for the United Kingdom’s estimated outstanding commitments.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to getting a good deal for the UK, and have agreed a fair financial settlement with the EU. Even if the UK leaves without a deal, the Government have always been clear that the UK has obligations to the EU—and that the EU has obligations to the UK—that will survive its withdrawal, and that these obligations would need to be resolved.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure everyone in the House will agree that we—be it as individuals or as a nation—should pay our debts. But I suspect that most of us would also agree that we should not pay bills when we have received nothing in exchange. I hear that the European Commission is demanding that, whatever happens—should we leave without a deal—it would expect £39 billion from us. This probably has more to do with the hole it will have in its budget when we leave, rather than anything else. Could my noble friend reassure me that we will definitely renegotiate any financial deal should we—regrettably—leave without a deal on 29 March?

[Lord Bates]

The position on the financial settlement was that it went alongside the withdrawal agreement. It is, if you like, looking at our obligations to the EU as a result of our membership. It is not connected to the future economic partnership that we hope to negotiate with our European friends and partners. Were we not to honour that financial settlement, which is part of the withdrawal agreement, that would probably have a significant bearing on our ability to get a good deal for the UK in the future.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Robathan Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I broadly welcome this Bill, and we have already heard about some of the ways in which it could perhaps be improved. I welcome it on the ground that, apart from anything else, it is the Government’s responsibility to protect the public, and the Bill is about improving public safety—and who would not wish to see that happen?

I am not an expert on the rise in knife crime. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, raised the issue. I have not seen much of it, but in some communities in this country there has been a huge rise in knife crime. If we read the Evening Standard, which I try not to do, we discover that there appears to be an explosion in some kinds of knife crime, especially in the capital. That must worry us all. We have all heard about the ghastly murder on the train at Clandon at the weekend. I had never really heard about acid attacks until the last few years and they seem to be on the rise as well—so I commend the Government and certainly support moves, which I hope will be successful, to combat those crimes.

I will focus on firearms alone. I absolutely agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, who said that our firearms legislation UK is “among the world’s strongest”—and quite rightly so. We have very little firearms crime in this country compared with, for instance, somewhere such as the USA. Frankly, the USA’s record on gun crime is abominable. Even as someone who owns a shotgun, I say that the way in which people can get hold of weapons and firearms in the USA is a grave worry. The gun lobby seems to be ill judged in that which it is protecting. I declare an interest in that I own a shotgun. I go game shooting and have used, and occasionally still use, a rifle. I was in the Army for many years and used a great many weapons, for obvious reasons. Before we ban something that perhaps we do not wish to do, we should look at the evidence to see what the impact would be. Noble Lords mentioned .50 calibre rifles in particular, so I will home in on that issue.

A long time ago I used a .50 calibre machine-gun. I understand that there are only 137 .50 calibre rifles licensed in this country. For those who do not know, it is a big, unwieldy heavy piece of kit—so it is pretty difficult to use in a hold-up, for instance, as my noble friend Lord Lucas just mentioned. A terrorist in Northern Ireland used to snipe at security forces with a .50 calibre rifle. I do not know whether he is on one of those letters of comfort that were issued after the Good Friday agreement. I do not know whether he was ever caught. I do not know whether he is alive or dead. But the point about the rifle is that it was illegally imported, and of course its use was illegal. I think that it was part of the three or four shipments that Gaddafi sent from Libya to the IRA. The last one was seized by the French Navy in 1987. The MV Eksund had 120 tonnes of armaments—weapons and ammunition—on board. That is the sort of scale that one is looking at. So if we are talking about banning illegally held .50 rifles, there are 137 in this country. So we should bring this into perspective.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, is no longer in his place. As he said, he was closely involved in the Dunblane massacre—the appalling incident when Thomas Hamilton murdered 17 children and teachers in a classroom. Noble Lords may remember the Cullen report that followed, in which Lord Justice Cullen—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen—found failings in the police’s registering of the weapons that Hamilton had, and also failings in general public services such as mental health services, because issues were raised back in 1991 about Hamilton’s mental suitability to have firearms. Those were not taken up.

Cullen did not recommend the banning of pistols. Now I am not a pistol shooter, so the ban did not affect me in any way. I am not arguing on my own behalf. But one has to ask what effect it had on crime using handguns or pistols. I dug out the statistics. Of course, Hamilton had legally held pistols. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, who I thought argued very well—so I am not criticising him. But in 1996, the year before the legislation came in, there were 3,347 handgun-linked instances of crime reported. In 2001-02 that had gone up to 5,874. It has since come down again. In the last year for which we have statistics it was 2,675. Almost all these weapons—and I would say now all these weapons—have never been legally held. So by banning people spending their weekends firing pistols, which I did not and most people did not, we have not particularly contributed to a reduction in firearms crime because you can buy pistols. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will stop me if I am wrong, but I suspect that there are pubs in London where you can buy a pistol—if you know the right pub, which I do not.

While I support the Bill, we should not go into the business of interfering with people’s lives where it is not necessary. If it is necessary, we should. On that note, I commend the Bill to the House in general terms.

Yemen: Famine

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

It is a catastrophe at the present time. What is happening there is a manmade disaster and, yet again, where there are manmade conflicts and wars, women and children are the first to suffer as a result. The situation is intolerable and we are working across a range of different headings. The only solution is for the parties to the conflict to come to the negotiating table. We thought that we were getting close to that in Geneva, through the work of Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy. However, one party did not turn up for that set of dialogues. The Foreign Secretary has indicated that discussions are under way with the UN Security Council to see what more can be done. In the meantime, we continue our efforts to work through international agencies to relieve some of the suffering. But ultimately, that suffering will be halted only when the conflict stops.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, in this catastrophe, as my noble friend so rightly calls it, what has the response of Iran been, in this very difficult and complex situation, to the overtures for peace from the UN? We know well what the Saudis do, but the Iranian influence there seems to be somewhat more hidden.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend raises an important issue. Some of the armaments that have been fired, including ballistic missiles, have been traced back to Iran. Essentially, if we are going to address the humanitarian crisis, which is the urgency, all parties to the conflict need to get round the table and, rather than seeking to apportion blame, seek to find a solution that provides a de-escalation of the situation, leading to a ceasefire.

Rendition of UK Citizens

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, whatever position one might take on capital punishment, the good people of the United Kingdom will be bemused by the sensibilities being shown at the moment? Any obstruction put in the way of the prosecution of these murdering terrorists by the British Government would not be understood.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I most certainly agree with my noble friend that bringing the perpetrators of such heinous crimes to justice is absolutely paramount. However, I reiterate the Government’s position: we oppose the death penalty in all cases.

Amesbury Incident

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It is a sad thing to say, but because there has been a previous attack I think the whole system has operated far more smoothly this time. The noble Baroness is right to point out that any delays could be life-threatening to the people involved. There is a number to ring. I understand that the hospital is the one the Skripals were in, so there is experience of dealing with this. I assume that what the noble Baroness requests is happening and that the whole process will run a lot more smoothly this time.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, after the Salisbury attack the response of our allies, NATO and the international community was very heartening. Notwithstanding the successful football tournament going on in Russia at the moment, can my noble friend reassure the House that the initial response of our allies, whatever the circumstances of this incident, remains steadfast and determined and shows solidarity with the British people on this?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can confirm, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary confirmed this morning, that a number of international engagement opportunities are coming up. Let us not forget that we are at the beginning of an investigation, but of course there will be opportunities for international engagement as time goes forward. I fully expect that our international partners will stand with us this time, as they did last time.