Middle East

Lord Stevens of Birmingham Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

One thing is clear: there is no role for Hamas in the future. That means that we have to work with all parties, particularly those in the region. I mentioned before that we continue to work with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the United States and regional partners, including Arab and Gulf states, to build a consensus for a post-conflict Gaza governance and security framework that supports the conditions for a permanent and sustainable peace. We are prepared to convene partners and to help lead efforts to ensure that there is international and regional support for security, governance, recovery and reconstruction. It is vital that the whole of the region pulls together, and I am pretty confident that we will be able to do that. I hear what the noble Baroness says about Hamas; there can be no role for an organisation that has committed such horrific crimes.

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

Given that the Minister has rightly said that there can be no role for Hamas, has he seen the well-sourced reports from independent news agencies—such as the one from Reuters today—showing that, as we speak, it is Hamas thugs who are controlling the distribution of international humanitarian aid in north Gaza, as well as controlling the movement of the long-suffering Gazans themselves? How can Gaza be reconstructed and peace be secured while, in practice, Hamas appears to still be in control?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The important thing is that we are working with the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to focus on the security issues the noble Lord points to. That is why we are supporting the Palestinian Authority in its security mechanisms. The Israeli Government also have a duty to ensure that there is proper distribution of that aid, to northern Gaza in particular. It is pretty obvious that the situation is quite fragile, as was seen by the evidence of the release of hostages, but we are absolutely committed. The solution lies in ensuring that the Palestinian Authority has the ability to conduct its security operations.

UK Strategy Towards the Arctic (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Stevens of Birmingham Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, given that this magisterial report includes recommendations on shipping and search and rescue services, I declare my interest as chair of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, along with a personal interest over many years in the Arctic. I do not know whether other Members of your Lordships’ House here today have, like me, had the opportunity to visit the North Pole on an icebreaker or to sail in the Barents Sea into Svalbard.

However, anybody who cares about the Arctic—and that is everybody here today—knows that, although it is only 3% of the planet’s ocean surface, it exercises an outsized impact on climate security. This includes the ice cap reflecting heat and the unique hydrography of the Arctic, where we find warmer water beneath a surface layer of colder water that then interacts with the Atlantic in the Denmark overflow. This has as yet not completely understood impacts on the currents that transit, including producing shifts of excess heat from the equatorial regions to the polar regions with impacts on our own climate.

It is, therefore, incredibly disturbing to learn in a paper published in Nature Communications last month that it is now modelled that there is at least a distinct possibility that we may see the first largely ice-free day in the Arctic summer by the end of this decade, not by 2050 as we had complacently previously told ourselves. It would therefore be not only ironic but potentially tragic if the very fact of the melting of the ice means that we as humanity collectively use that as an opportunity to exploit more hydrocarbons and accelerate this cycle in the Arctic.

Given that four fifths of the unexploited hydrocarbons in the Arctic lie within individual countries’ exclusive economic zones, we must clearly have the humility to recognise that they have the right to exploit those hydrocarbons if they so choose. My first question to the Minister is: given that this report is titled Our Friends in the North, many of these countries that might so do are our friends, so what action can the UK Government take to try and persuade others not to take the apparently easy option of exploiting these hydrocarbons in a way that will be further detrimental to the planet?

Relatedly, it is worth drawing attention to one of the other recommendations of the report, at paragraph 244, which notes that there is still the opportunity to prevent further exploitation of the seabed in the central Arctic outside of the EEZs and potentially the continental shelf claims that have been lodged by a number of Arctic nations. One way in which the UK can play our part there is to get on and ratify the so-called BBNJ treaty, the Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction. Can the Minister tell us today, at the prompting of this report, when Parliament will see a Bill that will enable the ratification of that important agreement?

At paragraph 290, the report says that the UK should continue to

“work with its partners to uphold the rules and obligations set out in UNCLOS”.

That is clearly right. Can the Minister also use this opportunity to put on record the UK’s repudiation of Russia’s distorted interpretation of international maritime law as it applies in the Arctic? In particular, can he confirm that the northern sea route is not covered by a “legal regime of inland seawaters”, as claimed by the 2022 Russian maritime doctrine? Instead, will the Minister confirm that these seas are subject to freedom of navigation and the same right of innocent passage that Russian vessels and warships use when they transit the English Channel and UK territorial waters? Will he also confirm that nor is Russia entitled to misapply Article 234 of UNCLOS, the so-called “ice clause”, to apply discriminatory requirements on foreign-flagged vessels such as tolls, prior permission requirements and the mandatory use of the Rosatom icebreaker fleet?

We might argue that these do not matter for the time being, certainly for merchant shipping, but they will over time. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, strategically it is obvious that Russia cannot be allowed to assert control over the Arctic and the sea lines of communication, including the approaches to the Bering Sea, the Barents Sea and other sensitive areas, such as the Kara Strait, the Laptev Strait and the Sannikov Strait.

For all those reasons and the points that were made, but which I will not repeat, by a number of distinguished noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Houghton, and others, it is quite obvious that the UK, through the SDR, will have to step up its capabilities in the High North. Like several other noble Lords, I have had the opportunity to spend time with the Royal Marines in Bardufoss at Camp Viking. As has been described, they were highly impressive, but nevertheless, without going into detail publicly, there are obviously some equipment and capability gaps that the SDR would be wise to address. On that basis, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, for the magisterial introduction he gave to this excellent report, the conclusions of which I fully concur with.