Israel/Gaza

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, rather than take sides in this debate, I should like to offer suggestions as to how to move forward positively, peacefully and with compassion and respect for all.

First, we need to arrive at a position where the nations of the world, including the United Kingdom, are ready to acknowledge and recognise the state of Palestine alongside Israel. We can find inspiration in the words of empathetic leaders who have comprehended the gravity of this situation. One particular speech by Barack Obama comes to mind in which he eloquently articulated the need for hope and respect for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank without resorting to aggression, but rather with a sincere call for empathy and understanding.

Secondly, it is time for us to take action, extend compassion and earnestly work towards a peaceful resolution for both sides. We cannot permit the continuation of the suffering faced by the citizens of Israel under the existing status quo. Let us begin to strive for a future where Israel and Palestine can coexist in peace and prosperity.

Thirdly, and constructively, to alleviate the short-term terror, we should agree to create a long-term plan along the lines that I suggested a few weeks ago in this House and for which I have had high-level endorsement. If we have a positive plan, which I will explain in one minute, of a future where everyone benefits, we can work towards it as partners for peace.

So, Saudi Arabia—Mohammed bin Salman—should work with Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians to build a huge port in Gaza, linked to Cyprus, so that Palestine becomes the Hong Kong of the region and its citizens become wealthy. Together, these countries—Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan—having become partners in this huge, positive construction project, can all develop the Sinai peninsula as a huge solar energy park as a source of clean energy for the planet, moving the region from oil and gas income to solar power.

This partnership would build peace, co-operation and green energy on the vast scale that the world needs. My friend Samir Takla in Egypt is in close contact with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and they would like this to happen. Perhaps the Minister, who has been so helpful in all of this, might invite the parties here to discuss this in a positive, constructive way, with the UK playing a co-ordinating role. Several organisations with which I am involved would be happy to help organise and facilitate such a conference and project.

Abraham Accords

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, ever since I spent a year in the Middle East in 1967 as a volunteer in the Six Day War, I have been involved with schemes trying to bring nations there together for peace. The Abraham accords are exactly what my old company, Marks & Spencer, was trying to do in the region for decades—on a smaller scale, of course. In 1977, we started deliberately buying goods in volume from Egypt, as we already were from Israel; we hoped this would persuade President Sadat to visit Israel and make peace, and he did.

In the 1980s, we persuaded our Israeli manufacturers to manufacture Marks & Spencer goods in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. Delta Galil set up a factory in Cairo, employing 12,500 people making socks and underwear using the best Egyptian cotton, and another factory in Jordan, thus developing warm relations. Then, in the 1990s, Tony Blair asked if I would go to the West Bank and Gaza to do the same for the Palestinians. We did that successfully.

Why do I mention all this? It is because there is now a great opportunity, on a much larger scale, for the countries of the Gulf and north Africa to use their wealth and assets to include Israel in a massive transformation of the region, to move from oil and gas-producing industries to wind, solar and other clean forms of energy and greener technologies. By using the brilliant science, ingenuity and advanced technology in Israel, this can make them all very wealthy and create close partnerships, at the same time as saving the planet.

Specifically, to enhance the Abraham accords, Saudi Arabia can perhaps join in. It wants to recognise Israel but, at the same time, support Palestine. It can do this by combining recognition of Israel with a major, game-changing investment in Palestine—something spectacular that is not easy for Israel to agree to but doable. It needs to be something that Saudi Arabia can deliver, and be seen to have been delivered on the back of a recognition of Israel and benefits for Palestine.

Nabil Shaath had a plan for the redevelopment of Gaza Port with a “linked” port in Cyprus. This would mean Saudi recognition of both Israel and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Although the costs of such a dramatic gesture of this kind would be immense, there would be private sector investment and other Governments might contribute—perhaps the USA—but Saudi Arabia would be the main shareholder.

As the UK has expertise in all this, possesses great diplomatic skills and has good relations with countries across the region, we could play a vital role. Perhaps the Minister could suggest to His Majesty’s Government that we could host a series of meetings here and discuss all this with these parties in this very House.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, all these problems in the Middle East are my fault. In 1967, I was a volunteer in the Six Day War, so I started all this mess. However, in the following decades, I have been trying to help make peace. At Marks & Spencer, we encouraged Israeli manufacturers to work with Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese companies and become partners with one another. With the help of Tony Blair, I got Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco to buy homegrown foods and textiles from the West Bank and Gaza to help them to grow. But those and many other projects did not create peace either, so I am still to blame.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, will the UK Government recognise the state of Palestine? This would then mean that rather than a recognised state—Israel—trying to negotiate with a disparate people, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, you would have two states negotiating about their borders and citizenship et cetera, and it would make it more fair and viable. It could change everything if our country, that issued the Balfour Declaration and was a mandate authority, would agree to extend recognition to a Palestinian state.

Secondly, will the UK make good on its commitment as the first country on earth to endorse the concept of creating an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which can engage a new generation, at scale, in the project of peacebuilding rather than allowing them to fall into their current despair and enmity, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, described?

Thirdly, will the UK signal its strong opposition to any legislation that taxes, chills or delegitimises the work of Israeli-Palestinian civil society, which this Israeli Government are threatening to do? Also, in May at the G7 leaders’ communique in Japan, let us please push for language that clearly shows to the governing authorities in the region that civil society is a “red line” for the international community.

Finally, I suggest that the Minister meets John Lyndon of the Alliance for Middle East Peace—ALLMEP—who is doing great work in the field; Gershon Baskin, who has been talking with both sides for decades, and Tony Klug, who has written many wise briefs on how to resolve these issues.

I close by mentioning the late Rabbi David Geffen, who died this weekend and was the founder of Loving Classroom, a project that is teaching children in Arabic, Hebrew and English in schools across the world to love, respect and befriend children on all sides. Can we support this project by adopting Loving Classroom in all schools in the UK, where it is already making a difference in several schools?

Israel and Palestine: United States’ Proposals for Peace

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in 1967 I was a volunteer in the June Six Day War in Israel. I went there to help the war and then to work to help repair the country the following year. Just after the war in that same June, the eloquent Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, spoke at the UN. He said:

“In the institutions of scientific research and higher education of both sides of the frontiers, young Israelis and Arabs could join in a mutual discourse of learning. The old prejudices could be replaced by a new comprehension and respect born of a reciprocal dialogue in the intellectual domain. In such a Middle East, military budgets would spontaneously find a less exacting point of equilibrium. Excessive sums devoted to security could be diverted to development projects. Thus, in full respect of the region’s diversity, an entirely new story, never known or told before, would unfold across the Eastern Mediterranean … The challenge now is to use this freedom for creative growth. There is only one road to that end. It is the road of recognition, of direct contact, of true cooperation. It is the road of peaceful co-existence.”


He went on to say, “Let us be an active part in the constructive solution of peaceful and economic prosperity for all people in the region.” I was 25 then, and this has inspired me ever since to try to bring the people there together in peace.

It is self-evident that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is only possible if the basic aspirations of both peoples are met. Both peoples aspire to self-determination in their own sovereign, independent state. Nothing in the past 50 years has altered this, regardless of other changes. In 1993, under the Oslo accords, the Palestinians finally dropped their demand for 100% of the land and agreed to accept a state alongside Israel in 22% of the land, meaning the West Bank and Gaza, subject to land swaps. There is an overwhelming international consensus on this framework. Any proposal that significantly deviates from it cannot be taken seriously, however powerful the proponents.

This Trump plan, as a strategy to firm up right-wing domestic support in an election year in both the US and Israel, makes a lot of sense. However, as a strategy to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it falls short in its current form. It is time now to recognise a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem alongside the Israeli state with its capital in West Jerusalem in the hope that the two neighbouring states will eventually form some sort of confederation. Then, something good could come out of the Trump plan.

Since 1967, I have worked to build bridges: through my work at Marks & Spencer with its suppliers in the region; as the chairman of the British Overseas Trade Group for Israel; with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Egypt; with Palestinian and Jordanian farmers, textile workers, high-tech incubators—the noble Lord, Lord Young was a mentor to me all the way through that—and universities and educationalists; and with sensitive, dedicated NGOs across the divide. I have worked to build bridges and show what could be a better future life for the 125 million citizens of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Palestine if they spent the same time, effort, money and resources on building peace and co-operation with compassion rather than squandering all that on war and enmity.

As we heard in today’s Statement, we in the UK will soon be separated from the EU and will begin to develop a new chapter in our international relations. With our historic association with Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, which are in key positions in the Mediterranean, Africa and, of course, the Middle East, I suggest to the Minister that we form a group here in the United Kingdom that brings together the many experts that we have in this country to discuss how we might help. It would not be seeking to argue the rights or wrongs of either side but to suggest how, perhaps after a long, thoughtful, positive discussion, we might then invite the parties in the region to come here and discuss a workable plan that might be attractive to all sides. Britain was, after all, the mandatory power and the issuer of the Balfour Declaration. We have an historical responsibility that no European country—or any other country for that matter—has. We were instrumental at the start of the separation and thence discord; now, with our new place in the world, let us try to heal it for the benefit of all peoples.

Middle East (IRC Report)

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, this report and what has already been said confirms what I have learned in 50 years’ involvement in many projects in the Middle East: the situation is complex, multifaceted and interconnected; apportioning blame and trying to negate the narrative of “the other” just makes things worse; and solutions are best developed by the people in the region.

Progress can be made with well-meaning groups on all sides working simultaneously, both horizontally and vertically: horizontally across the piece, straddling the various divides between individuals of differing cultures and religions, and across the leaders of the nations in the area; and, at the same time, vertically with small local projects at ground level and, at the mid-level, with leading academics, businessmen and NGOs, and then with the heads of state and Governments at the top. Were we to co-ordinate these both vertically and horizontally, we could make further progress.

I should like to offer your Lordships some hope by describing actual projects at all levels. At tier 1—at ground level—next month I shall be visiting a small, budding project whereby very religious Jewish ex-settlers who were told to leave Gaza and live in Eilat need someone else to grow their food in their sabbatical year. Every seven years, religious Jews are, by dint of their beliefs, not allowed to work their land and must let it rest. Across the border in Jordan, the Bedouin women whom I am visiting have offered to work the land and create a business supplying these Israeli religious Jews with food in that seventh year. However, the women can work only during the day, so Syrian refugees in southern Jordan have joined the partnership to work the night shift. Entrepreneurial Jordanian nationals have seen that there is a business to be had in working these fields by exporting the high-quality crops every year to other countries in the Middle East. I love it: Israeli Jews, Bedouins, Syrians and Jordanians—a win-win-win-win situation with a combination of interests, and I am going to try to help them.

Another group, PICO Jerusalem—an innovation hub melding people from all cultures to work together in start-ups in Jerusalem—is in the process of launching an initiative to bring education in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship to adults, youths and children in Jerusalem with all its environments. On the ground there are hundreds of such projects.

At the next level up, a movement called Two States, One Homeland—I have spoken about this before—is asking the people on both sides to try to understand the narrative of the other and to accept, with compassion, that that is the genuine belief of those on the other side. For example, many Israelis are accepting that the Palestinians believe that the region is their homeland and they want consideration of their right to return. Palestinians, on the other hand, are accepting that Jews believe that the whole area is their homeland and that living in parts of the West Bank is precious to them. Having accepted these as differing historical contexts, they have agreed to work together on a plan called Two States, One Homeland, which comprises the state of Israel, a state of Palestine, but also a confederation across these two sovereign states.

The best international lawyers are agreeing to help the people on both sides to create a constitutional settlement for a confederation, and international security experts are deciding how the separate countries run their own military and police force and co-ordinate this with the confederation. On trade and investment, finance and currency, there is already a team of Palestinians, Israelis and international investors working on this. On the holy sites, rabbis, bishops and imams are all working together.

Thirdly, at the highest vertical level and horizontally across the whole region, there is a group promoting a regional initiative. Prominent Israelis, business people, ex-military and security figures, diplomats, scholars and Middle East experts are working together with Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and have recently developed a regional diplomatic proposal to resume negotiations that leverages the Arab peace initiative and the Israeli peace initiative. The spread is wide and deep. President al-Sisi of Egypt can see the rightness of this for the region and for his 90 million people, and is encouraging us. The aim is that in this whole contiguous region, over one-third of all those living in the Middle East—150 million people—will find work, welfare, health and education and human rights.

As the report shows, we in the United Kingdom are in a unique position to move things forward, and it would be in our own interests to do so. We have expertise in education. British people helped to set up and develop the great universities in Israel, including the Weizmann Institute of Science, where I am a life governor, the Hebrew University, Ben-Gurion University, and the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. We are now working in Egypt, together with UK universities, to build a new university on 200 acres of land in Cairo, with 30,000 students in year five. I declare an interest as an adviser to Knowledge City Cairo.

In health, media, the arts and, of course, business, the UK has a unique soft power. We can help triangulate partnerships. For example, Egypt has the best long staple cotton in the world. The noble Lord, Lord Alliance, has worked for five years with Manchester University on a research project that shows that now is the time to regenerate the Lancashire textile manufacturing industry, using Egyptian cotton. Israel is the world expert in these technologies and the farming methods. We are helping them all to work together.

The United Kingdom is uniquely placed to give assistance to these processes. The report suggests that we should not be trying to influence people by laying down rules and telling them what we believe is right. We have made too many mistakes like that in the past. However, we have the skills to be able to host and facilitate complex conversations at all levels to help people reach a consensus, and all these people would feel comfortable and safe here in the United Kingdom and here in these premises. In 2004, I hosted, here on the Estate, senior officials from 22 Arab countries who agreed the Arab peace initiative in 2004.

I am suggesting that Her Majesty’s Government, together with us in Parliament, set up a system to host a series of meetings with people horizontally from across the region and within the nations vertically, from top to bottom, so that those people can feel comfortable and safe and discuss projects and help to meld them into an overall, cohesive plan. The report is a good basis for us to kick off such a project. Let us do it.

Populism and Nationalism

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

As the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, suggests, across the democratic world our societies are increasingly divided, and trust in our elected representatives is alarmingly low. What is worse is that many politicians and people in the media revel in this divisiveness. Their very livelihoods depend on it and for this, cynically, they add fuel to the fire.

As long as we continue to play the same game of democracy as we know it, things will go from bad to worse. It is a system failure and it creates democratically elected authoritarians and dysfunctional coalitions. Yes, people are disillusioned. They feel that their voice no longer counts. Politics has become deeply polarised. The strong centre has evaporated. Both sides now tout their own version of us versus them; the left is often misperceived as anti-business, the right as xenophobic.

We are at serious risk of becoming a closed society, unable to embrace diversity, unable to demonstrate compassion and tolerance for difference and likely to increase exclusion. The deep divisions that we have created may lead to even greater marginalisation. Those who felt left behind before are now likely to experience an even worse version of exclusion, insularity and ethnocentricity than they ever felt.

However, there is good news. Noble Lords will know that I do not like to bemoan a situation, however bad and complex, without being able to come up with a practical solution—and here it is. New thinking has been emerging in places such as Iceland, Finland, Argentina, the Netherlands, and also here in the UK. New technologies across myriad different sectors have now made it possible for very large groups of people to interact and collaborate with each other and come up with better answers.

This phenomenon, described by Professor Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, is a fusion of technologies that are blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres. It is the current trend of automation and data exchange technologies and it includes cyberphysical systems, the internet of things and cloud computing. With it, we could create a better future system with a new political platform that actually establishes Abraham Lincoln’s ideal of,

“government of the people, for the people and by the people”.

Business, and particularly in my own field—retail—has already grasped this and is flourishing in the new milieu online and seeing the old forms of shopping in retreat. This technology, and making use of big data, are based on the notion that none of us is as smart as all of us. The crowd can be wiser and make much better decisions than any single representative or group of elected officials.

A new form of governance based on the use of this technology has been termed “crowdocracy”. It needs to be properly managed, to guide how the crowd functions, and this could be our role. Some traditionalists are frightened that this could lead to tyranny. Yes, get the conditions wrong and the crowd nearly always dumbs down and then makes some very poor choices. This should not put us off—it should spur us to modernise more speedily and expertly and use this new technology.

Politicians, unlike business, have failed to grasp the enormity of the benefit of this fourth industrial revolution. If we use this technology correctly and access diversity of knowledge and opinion, ensuring that people are in possession of accurate information, we would foster independence of thought and collaboration, decentralise power, and integrate the collective input into coherent crowd-sourced solutions. We could harness the wisdom of the crowd for the good of the many, not just the few. In this way we would stop privileging a small section of society and marginalising others; we would stop making things worse by creating divisive 48%:52% splits, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, mentioned; and instead we would develop the ability to make wise decisions that are in the best interests of all of us, regardless of political persuasion, and not just some.

This is not a fanciful utopia. I have already witnessed and been involved in testing this approach here in the UK, and there are strong indications that it is working. We could lead the world in the modernisation of democracy. We have a historic opportunity to transform ourselves from cynical and suspicious spectators and to all become genuine participants and actors in the governance of our community and of society at large.

I have placed in the Library several copies of the book Crowdocracy, written on this phenomenon by Dr Alan Watkins and Iman Stratenus. It is an interesting and enlightening read and would enable noble Lords to appreciate the potential of this idea. It will require genuine, thoughtful leadership, deep compassion and real courage to test, but together we could modernise our democracy and build a new form of governance for the greater good of all of us. Perhaps the Minister and those interested would be willing to meet experts in this field to examine the possibilities for tackling the challenges signalled by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, in bringing this debate to your Lordships’ House.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, reviving the peace process is possible but complex, as it exists on many levels: the people-to-people level, on the ground; the regional level, among the neighbouring countries; and the world level, among nations. However, at the leadership level in both countries, self-serving minorities who do not want peace hold the balance of votes. To change this, let us support several positive projects for the first three.

At the people-to-people level, Combatants for Peace are ex-Palestinian fighters and ex-military Israelis who have previously taken an active role in the cycle of violence. They realised that military engagement is not the way to create stability and security and are co-founders of this bi-national movement. They decided to drop their arms and work together to promote a peaceful solution through dialogue and non-violent action. Their mind-changing, high-quality film, “Disturbing the Peace”, is to be shown in London on 15 November, and I recommend it.

Two States One Homeland is a group of Palestinians and Israelis who concluded that the endless repetitive, divisive negotiations for the current two-state solution will not work. They realise that the two nations, each separately, hold deep convictions that all the land is their own sacred homeland. As the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, said, it is emotional. They now recognise the deep-felt narrative of the other side and are dealing with them as neighbours. They offer two states, each with their own separate constitutional settlement, but in one homeland in the form of a confederation, with a separate jointly agreed constitutional arrangement that allows for freedom of movement, distinguishes between “residency” and “citizenship”, and will manage the co-ordination of education, health, welfare, policing, security, economics and ecology.

The complex conversations they are holding on the ground, people to people, require great sensitivity and expertise, which we have here in the UK. The Crowd Foundation here, led by Alan Watkins, has been helping with this facilitation. A UK Government-funded extended visit of their team to the region to manage meetings with all concerned would greatly help to move things forward.

In Jerusalem, Isaac Hassan at his hub, PICO, is creating co-ownership companies with Palestinians and Israelis online. This summer, PICO arranged a simultaneous live streaming of young entrepreneurs from both east and west Jerusalem to pitch successfully to investors in a London hub, the Innovation Warehouse. It is now planning a similar event for next year, simultaneously from Egypt, Palestine and Israel, centring again into London. The Mayor of London could help here, thus enhancing our reputation as a worldwide hub.

This brings me to the wider regional agreement. Koby Huberman’s framework for a two-state solution leverages the Arab peace initiative, and William Morris from the Next Century Foundation is developing with Egypt and others a phased implementation of the Arab peace initiative. The Arab neighbours need to stabilise the region and offer their young people hope. These initiatives need help to bring together leaders from the Arab world to work with Israelis and Palestinians. Will the Minister help encourage Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to engage with these groups under the good auspices of Her Majesty’s Government?

On the world scale, Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum just published an enlightened book called The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which demonstrates how digital technologies are revolutionising every industry globally. We could help Egypt, now fragile, to leap into this new paradigm, in the same way fragile Germany leaped into the third industrial revolution after the war. For example, Egyptian long staple cotton is the best in the world. The Egyptian Junior Business Association is developing a huge project to help Egypt actualise its potential. We in the UK are experts on cotton. So is Israel. China is hungry for these resources and will invest. As a way to regional harmony, will Her Majesty’s Government help us bring from the UK, Israel and the world appropriate technologies and investment to Egypt, where we know they are trying to reform and grow to help the millions of people there? Saving Egypt is perhaps our last hope for stability in that region.

Finally, in the same vein, when our APPG on Egypt visited Sharm el-Sheik, we were told by our representative in the Department for Transport that he could now see no reason why we should not fly there. Can we resume flights soon to help the 4 million people there and their tourism industry?

Middle East

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Grade, is right. Peace will come only when individuals on all sides understand the narrative of the other side and open their hearts to their suffering. This is the route to peace between Palestinians and Israelis and here it is in seven stages in two minutes. First, Israel accepts the Palestinian belief that the 1948 declaration of the state of Israel was a Nakba—a disaster —and that the region is their homeland and they want consideration of the right to return. The Palestinians accept that the Jews believe that from biblical times the whole area was their homeland. Yes, the settler issue needs settling. Having understood this historical context and agreeing that they cannot live together comfortably as one state, they agree a confederation of two sovereign states—the state of Israel and the state of Palestine; one homeland, two states.

Secondly, we now have the best international lawyers agreeing to help both sides work on a constitution of the two states. Israel already has a constitutional agreement. Palestine needs one. Also, jointly, they create an overall constitution for the new confederation.

Thirdly, security experts on both sides decide how the separate countries run their own military and police force and how, in addition, there will be a joint military and policing authority working together over the two states.

Fourthly, on trade and investment, and finance and currency, there is already a team of Palestinians, Israelis and investors across the world who have been working on a project called Breaking the Impasse, pledging billions of dollars to invest in the region, particularly in the new Palestinian state, once there is peace.

Fifthly, on the holy sites, we have spoken to rabbis, bishops and Imams about the theocracy of the region and they will work together as they preach, with compassion and within their own golden rule.

Sixthly, the Arab peace initiative, in 2002, was an all-in-one, take-it-or-leave-it offer, and Israel did not respond. A team is now working on a phased implementation of the API. In this way, 22 Arab countries would support the project.

Seventhly and finally, the media, acting responsibly, do not talk up war and killing, but report on the process described here in informed, even-handed, compassionate and positive terms. There we have it. One homeland, two states and peace, in two minutes. I ask the Minister if Her Majesty’s Government might consider convening a meeting of leaders and experts with whom we are working from all sides, in each of these seven fields to try to develop this concept.

Middle East and North Africa

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord King, could not stay for the whole debate and kindly sent me a note donating his seven minutes to me.

Last month, I spoke about the regional approach to the Arab-Israel divide and how Egypt was playing a helpful role. In this debate, I will concentrate on Egypt’s own development and on our UK opportunity and responsibility. Trust and inclusion build stability while mistrust and exclusion lead to spiralling instability. We are blessed in this country with a stable democracy and a safe society. We must be generous in supporting both the governance and peoples of partner countries as they seek to grow trust and stability.

We admire the courage of the Egyptian people and their leaders over recent years through some difficult times. First, I would like to offer condolences to the people of Egypt, the army and the President, for those people who died in last Friday’s horrific attack on the army camp by terrorists. We should know that there are many dreadfully injured Egyptian army and police officers being treated here in the UK, and many more in Germany, France and Switzerland.

The UK-Egypt partnership needs to get closer. Some 25% of all the people in the MENA region actually live in Egypt. Together, we can build benefits for the region and each other. It will require bold leadership to take the relationship to a new level and fulfil humanitarian, economic and stabilisation needs. Our Prime Minister should invite President al-Sisi to the UK as soon as possible. A group of experienced parliamentarians on our recent visits to Egypt were convinced that we in the United Kingdom have much to offer Egypt and that we can learn from Egypt’s experiences and expertise.

It is always easier to judge but wiser to understand more deeply. Rather than wringing our hands from the sidelines, we must take the opportunity to serve and help shape Egypt’s democratic cause and history. Our APPG on Egypt had a meeting yesterday with the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Tobias Ellwood. Our chairman and members of both Houses called for him urgently to extend an invitation to President al-Sisi to visit the UK in the light of the speed of the changes happening in the area and the rise of terrorism.

In a meeting last Tuesday, the Egyptian Secretary of State gave us assurances that the parliamentary elections are now imminent. He also said that the Government are planning to allow the Nubians, who have been dispossessed of their land for decades, to return to their tribal homes. We could discuss with President al-Sisi how we might continue to assist the Egyptians in following their four-stage road map to develop a first-class secular democracy with improved civil liberties and human rights. We could offer Britain’s experience and support in that endeavour.

The Egyptians have now completed the first two stages of the four-stage road map: first, a new constitution; secondly, an elected president; and now, thirdly, the election of a brand new Parliament with a judicial framework to monitor the election that will start in December and complete next March.

Finally, they plan to create better economic conditions for all of their people. For this they are arranging an investor conference to take place next February so that inward investment will create better lives for all the people of Egypt. We must help them to build the conditions for international business to invest and prepare UK businesses to be first investors. I am pleased that, to this end, the Minister Tobias Ellwood is to lead a trade delegation to Egypt next January. The UK can also continue to build security in the region by acting as a trusted intermediary between Egypt and Israel and facilitating the sharing of technical know-how, which is mutually beneficial to them and good for the UK.

Taking a wider view of the growing conflicts across MENA, the issues being fought over and the characteristics of the combatants are varied, but it seems that the root cause of all of them is similar. Whether it is the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank or the 90 million people in Egypt, whether it is the Syrians and the Kurds, those suffering in Iran and Iraq or those calling themselves Islamic State, it is all about not being allowed to have a say in their own affairs. Individuals and factions in dictatorships are finding no better course of action than to fight and Governments are finding no better credible solution than to clamp down with force on their people. This is where we should be encouraging, engaging, helping and serving. We should have a proactive foreign policy that builds trust and resilience before things get worse, helping to find a pathway from conflict and fragility to stability, investment, development and prosperity, along with helping Governments to listen, build trust and respond, and citizens to reap the benefits of incremental change.

We are paying the price for not proactively building resilience in the past. Foreign policy leadership should create the conditions for good governance, democratic voice and peaceful transition. This is what I suspect UK development and support aims do through the Building Stability Overseas strategy, which brings together the Foreign Office, the MoD and the DfID Growth and Resilience Department. They recognise that a day of conflict can cost more than a year of prevention, but it is not clear what the mechanism is. What is the “theory of change” by which our foreign policy will bring peace and stability to the region? We have learnt from engaging with Egypt that there is an opportunity that is not “empire” and is not “aid”; it is to help provide a platform and mechanisms for building democratic fabric and enabling development and trade with partner countries to support processes that rebuild trust in government and interventions that build the trustworthiness of that Government.

In my days as a retailer—I am pleased to note that we have introduced into our House today a great retailer, the noble Lord, Lord Rose of Monewden—we would put our values to work with Egypt and Israel to build understanding and trust through trading with both of them on the same products, benefiting our customers, benefiting the UK and benefiting both Egypt and Israel. Sometimes the best strategy in business is to transform a difficult economic challenge with an entirely new way of thinking. To this end, I have spoken previously about the Middle East Centre for Civic Involvement. Benefiting from the wisdom and experience of noble Lords from all sides of the House and politicians from the other place, it aims to provide a mechanism for democratic fabric, trust building, stabilisation, and for investment and prosperity.

Let us partner with the MENA region for stability, investment, development and democracy. Let us be part of the solution. Let us consider the cost of our military interventions in the region and the cost of further instability and realise that it would be far better, as a distinct feature of UK foreign policy, to put British values to work in a way that meets national, economic, geopolitical and other interests. I ask the Minister to put it to Her Majesty’s Government that we should invest in a bold initiative for peace, stability and prosperity in the region by partnering more closely—and first with Egypt.

Syria and the Middle East

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, Syria is in the title of this timely debate, but one could have chosen, as has been said, several other epicentres of enormous world-changing transition within the region. For example, I have just returned from Israel and the West Bank, where great efforts are going into the peace talks and, despite the scepticism, movement is happening. Even though the timeframe may need to be extended, a positive process will be agreed by the middle of this year.

Today I want to concentrate on Egypt, which is also going to be a different country by June this year, and thereby influence the region for the better. Three weeks ago, a cross-party group of Members of both Houses visited Cairo, including the noble Lords, Lord Hylton and Lord Marlesford. Here I declare a non-financial interest as governor of the British University in Egypt (the BUE). Its founder, Mohamed Farid Khamis, and his foundation sponsored our visit.

Our objectives were to support the Egyptian people in their aspirations to democracy and stability, to establish a relationship between parliamentarians and promote better relationships between our countries, to keep on their agenda religious freedom, civil liberties, women’s rights, and to encourage some of the positive steps already taken in these fields. This visit was the first of a planned series of visits that will build relationships once the new Administration has been elected.

We had face-to-face individual meetings with the President, the Prime Minister at that time, Field Marshal al-Sisi, the Foreign Minister, the Minister of the Interior, His Holiness the Coptic Pope and the Grand Imam, and we were accompanied by the British Ambassador, James Watt. Our discussions were deep and wide and we developed several themes that we might work on together. For example, on the separation of police and the military, we agreed in talks with Field Marshal al-Sisi from the military, and the Interior Minister for the police, that while Egypt has a strong and effective military, which traditionally has an elevated status, its job now should be to deal with external threats to control the frontier, and it must re-establish order in the Sinai and keep a firm hold on the water sources there.

Egypt is facing unprecedented pressure from within, and the military cannot be the police. In the longer term, this civil unrest requires a police force with a higher status, an entirely different entity from the military, which should become a wide collection of local forces in all towns, villages, cities and communities, with a subtle understanding of local issues and integrated into the community, yet still with strong central governance. In this context, we also discussed the hundreds of detainees. Egypt needs immediately to develop a process to try them in court for recognised crimes or to release them.

We talked about the need, in addition to the presidential and parliamentary elections, for a process of continued national dialogue that could mobilise all the energies within Egypt. Within its 90 million people, there are many groupings that have their own hopes and fears, grievances and aspirations. A Government who want to rule with the will of their people must have a robust, sensitive, patient, long-term system for listening to, hearing and responding to those voices. They are now considering a centre for civic involvement at the British University of Egypt where faculty, students and experts from the UK can facilitate dialogue. We emphasised the need for the involvement of Copts, Nubians, youth, women and so on.

We also met with the wise and experienced Amr Moussa, who has gone to great lengths to work with the Committee of 50, including these groups, which, with enormous patience and understanding, has created a new Egyptian constitution. He and all the people we met realise that they are taking on a huge task to restore Egypt to its former glory. The economy needs reviving. Law and order will encourage tourism. Inward investment should be made as easy as possible, and there is a need to increase—as is being done by the BUE—training for work and employment for youth. Healthcare will need to be restructured. Egyptians have great talent and entrepreneurialism and stand at the crux between Africa to the south and Europe to the north; they are part of the east and the west.

We have just heard Angela Merkel talk about the peace and prosperity brought about by post-war united Europe. Were Israel and Palestine and Jordan and Egypt to find their feet in the next few years and begin to work and trade together, they could serve as a light to the nations that surround them. That could be the beginning of a Middle East and north Africa that contribute greatly to the world’s economy, ecology, art, science, medicine and culture.

As a result of this visit, we will form an all-party parliamentary group on Egypt. We will arrange follow-up meetings post Egyptian parliamentary elections for us to go back to Egypt and for them to come to the UK. We hope that noble Lords will help us help them gain the stability they seek and that Her Majesty’s Government will support this work where Britain could help bring a wider stability to the whole region.

I have just noticed that I have spoken for only five minutes. Can I bank the extra five for a future debate when I am limited to three minutes?