Landmines and Cluster Munitions
Lord Sandhurst Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, this is a timely debate; I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame. We face an acute international crisis and we must remember: Russia never signed these treaties. In his excellent paper for Policy Exchange and again today, the noble Lord explained the reasoned restrictions on withdrawal—in other words, to leave lawfully, a state must complete six months’ notice in time of peace. To leave when at war puts a state in breach, so now is the time.
These weapons are most unpleasant. They leave grave dangers for civilians. Those are important considerations and I do not overlook them, but Sir Ben Wallace has written that the Ottawa treaty prevented the United Kingdom and others from helping Ukraine with effective weapons, yet the Russians use them freely, as and when they like. These weapons drive opponents into confined areas, where they are easier to strike. They have been used to great effect in the Ukraine theatre. They have helped Ukraine defend itself.
To be at war against Russia, itself fighting under no such constraints, would be for us, the United Kingdom, to fight with one hand behind our backs; it would endanger our many fewer troops and make much heavier losses likely. Without them, we lose a deterrent: war will be more likely. That is why our eastern European allies plan to withdraw from the treaties. I am afraid we must do the same.
European Convention on Human Rights: 75th Anniversary
Lord Sandhurst Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, this is a timely debate and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing it. I declare an interest as a member of Justice, and indeed a past member of its council for some years.
The European Convention on Human Rights is a significant document. It embodies important values, but, equally, important and legitimate criticisms can be made of the jurisprudence that the court has generated. What the United Kingdom should do now and in the future has become a legitimate question. The concerns that I will express in this speech go not to the convention itself but to its misapplication by the courts and the implications for our constitution.
The Strasbourg court has the task of defining convention rights in practice. In performing that task, the court has treated the convention as a living instrument. That is, of itself, not a term in the treaty. It has used that to alter the scope of rights to give effect to changes in social attitudes—matters which in the United Kingdom are generally best left to Parliament.
I will give some examples. In Scoppola v Italy (No. 3), the Strasbourg court declared the statute which barred serving prisoners from voting at elections to be incompatible with the convention. It seems startling that the electoral franchise is not a matter on which the representatives of the general body of citizens have any say. Another example is the recent extraordinary climate change decision in KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland, which the Swiss Parliament, unsurprisingly, voted to ignore.
Articles 8 and 10 have been used to gag the press. In the case of Al-Skeini, the House of Lords excluded claims against the Army because the victims had not been within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. Strasbourg overturned that decision, but I suggest that the parties to the convention never intended that it should apply to warlike operations carried out by member states in foreign jurisdictions. Strasbourg has expanded the range of the convention and interpreted it in ways well beyond anything envisaged when it was made.
Issues of public policy involve choices between competing considerations—that is the essence of government and legislation; it is what our Parliament is there to decide. But where do we go? We are on the horns of a dilemma. The constitutional effects of leaving the convention would be serious. The United Kingdom would likely be expelled from the Council of Europe, which I do not endorse. Withdrawal would put the United Kingdom in breach of the Good Friday agreement, written into the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and none of us would want that. The convention is also baked into the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement—the TCA. The United Kingdom denouncing the ECHR would be grounds for the EU to terminate the part of the TCA on law enforcement and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, which would be a serious problem for us all.
However, something must be done. At a minimum, we must look again at the Human Rights Act. It should be amended to mitigate the constitutional problems to which it gives rise—but that is for another speech.
Red Sea: Houthi Attacks
Lord Sandhurst Excerpts(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Regarding decisions on maritime security, we have constant conversations with those responsible for shipping and give advice on security. We have not advised shipping to divert away from this route, but clearly those responsible are making decisions for themselves. We have seen a large number of vessels divert around the Cape of Good Hope, for obvious reasons.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
I thought the question was about arming vessels, not the route they took. Can the Minister answer that, please?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The answer I provided may not be the one that noble Lords opposite wanted to hear but, none the less, it is my answer. We work closely with those who are responsible for maritime security and for shipping. I think that is what a responsible Government would do. That is as far as I will go today.
British Indian Ocean Territory: Negotiations
Lord Sandhurst Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My noble friend is completely right. On this issue of the legalities, which I am sure will come up, we had a choice. We could wait for the legal tide to come in still further and have rulings that were binding made against us. In that situation, we would be negotiating from a position of particular weakness, we felt, so it was much better to get ahead and get this deal done before we reached that circumstance.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has not answered an important question which my noble friend asked. Does the agreement give the United Kingdom an absolute right to extend the lease at the end of the 99 years, or is it just a right to ask for renewal? That is very different. Which is it?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, the treaty will be published very soon, and we will have a chance to properly test it according to the things that are of concern to the noble Lord. I suggest that we wait for the treaty to be scrubbed and printed so that we can all satisfy ourselves about the precise nature of what has been agreed.
International Anti-Corruption Court
Lord Sandhurst Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Noble Lords will of course understand that we cannot make progress on this without a treaty on which to base it. We cannot produce that treaty ourselves; it must be done, by necessity, with international partners. We see this very much as complementing the work that has been done on international money laundering in the UK and with the British Virgin Islands and elsewhere. Should there be discussions along the lines which the noble Lord outlined, we would be happy to take part in them.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench. The United Kingdom’s international anti-corruption unit has been a world-leading capability since its establishment in 2017. As we heard last year, by 2023 it had
“disseminated 146 intelligence reports, identified £1.4 billion-worth of assets, and supported the freezing of £623 million-worth of assets”.—[Official Report, 6/7/23; col. 1301.]
Grand corruption is a grave issue. What further steps will the Government take to better recover stolen assets?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his remarks. We share our ambition and determination to tackle this issue in as many different ways as are necessary. I highlight the International Anti-corruption Co-ordination Centre, which is part of our NCA. It has been incredibly successful and is unique internationally in its ability to share data and investigate and pursue money that has been raised illegally elsewhere in the world. We want to build on this success.