Government Departments: Non-Executive Directors

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I will not follow the noble Lord on specifics, but we should bear in mind that a very large number—the overwhelming majority, and probably all—of the people involved are dedicated to the cause of improving public service and have given good public service. So far as appointments are concerned, vacancies are advertised on the Government’s public appointments website, and appointees are subject to a shortlisting panel interview process. However, a Secretary of State can also make direct appointments, which account for a small number of appointments.

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that, aside from the range of people appointed to departments that my noble friend Lord Foulkes has just referred to, there are also a number of other bodies that have non-executive directors within departments. Will the Minister publish a list of all of those people, say what their salaries are and say whether they have been contributors to the Conservative Party’s funds? Will he say what advice will be given, even on an interim basis, to those who are supervising government departments, in terms of their relationship with senior Ministers?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a point about arm’s-length and other bodies; he is right to say that they have board members, and I will take away his point in respect of them. Interests are required to be declared: currently, this is done in departments’ annual report, but clearly these matters are always subject to review and consideration.

Budget Statement

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Eatwell has precisely described this Budget’s overall strategy as an overbearing commitment to “outdated fiscal orthodoxy”. The Budget fails to stimulate seed-corn innovation in green technologies, repair the social and welfare damage that has been done, or deal with the wealth divisions. Nor does it help children, who are not mentioned, or mitigate inevitable unemployment, which is on the horizon.

The 1% proposal for NHS staff is a grave error; 2.5% was awarded last summer for the police and this was rightly justified by the Government, not least for the extra Covid duties that they undertook. NHS staff cannot be treated worse. The hundreds of thousands of self-employed and people in micro-businesses, who have not been reached by any help, have also not been helped in this Budget. All are critical matters of resilience for the country and all show that we need a more durable form of social justice.

Finally, it remains wholly unclear how the UK and the EU will co-operate in the financial sector. It is of global importance to us and the review by the noble Lord, Lord Hill, again emphasises this. London’s global leadership is not safe. Amsterdam has overtaken us as an active trade hub, and the Budget has almost nothing to say on trade. The massive, mission-critical gap opening up is of great seriousness. It is no basis for reliable business planning and does not speak to continuity or certainty. This is not special pleading for the financial sector; it is about jobs and long-term prosperity, about green growth and fairer build-back, not a plea to feather nests. The role of the state has grown significantly in the last year and it is inevitable that the Government have to be the weather maker.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege, as it always is, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. I think that she and I have two reasons to celebrate today. The first, of course, is the change that has taken place as a result of the Minister’s statement, to which I will return in just a second, and the second thing we celebrate is that we are both from Tottenham, and it is one of those rare days when people from Tottenham will be celebrating as well. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, will know exactly what I am talking about.

I join others in expressing my thanks to the Minister. We have not always been on the same side of debates, but I have been enormously impressed, as have other noble Lords, by his willingness not just to listen but to argue his case and then to come to a conclusion, which I am sure is his conclusion, which he has urged on other Ministers to make the Bill a better Bill. I appreciate that and I thank him for it, just as I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for moving the amendment, which I fully support, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Nicholson, and all others who have provided not only a lot of good sense but a very educative process for the House. I appreciate that a lot.

A number of noble Lords have been quite rightly appreciative of the role on all these issues of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. I am afraid that I am going to break ranks a tiny bit with her, and I hope that one day, if not today, she will forgive me, because when people tell you that you that because of the sorts of things you are likely to say or the things that you have said you are going to be called out, it is important to know what you are being called out about and whether it is true. I said at Second Reading, and I know it is true of very many colleagues across the House, that we have been involved in various fights—led by women’s organisations, I have to say—for the extension of women’s rights. I deeply appreciate those who led those fights, and I am grateful for the chance to have taken part.

The same is true about LGBT. I cannot recall one of the significant campaigns that have come from that community for which I have not had 100% support. That is also true about the rights of trans people, so I do not accept in any sense that by raising these issues we somehow have turned our backs on that history, or on the commitments which we have adhered to or that we have made, or that we are engaging in grievous stereotyping. I completely accept, for example, that trans women are under threat, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, but it is also true that other people and other groups are under threat and I do not think we do any of them any service if we play them off one against another.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said that we would be alarmed if we saw some of the things that have been written and said to her, so let me say that I deplore that as well. That kind of nastiness and incivility is deeply damaging to our political life and social life, and I deplore the fact that the noble Baroness has been on the receiving end of that kind of diatribe. But I hope she will accept that when we talk about evidence, there is genuine evidence on all sides. My noble friend Lord Winston made a point about some of the occasions when he has been on the receiving end. I can confirm that, on some issues, for me in the Labour Party the anti-Semitic abuse was completely intolerable at one stage, as I think it was to all people of good will. You do not accept that that behaviour should be meted out to other people, and I do not expect to be on the receiving end of it either.

The truth is, there is a huge amount of evidence. The most important evidence—referred to with great care by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who has also played a huge role in this, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—is that organisations and individuals are having their capacity to act on behalf of people who suffer from discrimination stripped out by being denied the kinds of funds they have had for a long time to conduct that fight. That is all real evidence. It is as real as the evidence on any side of this. I have received a large number of very pleasant emails, but I am afraid to say I have also received a significant amount of abuse on social media.

The language is an issue. Getting the right language in our legislation is always an issue, for reasons I will not repeat because noble Lords have made the point very clearly. It is urgent at the moment, not just because of this Bill but because, for example, the basis on which the ONS has decided to collect data on biological sex—or rather, not to collect this data in the census—now means that a number of leading quantitative social scientists believe we will have inadequate data and an inadequate track back through data historically. We have been given almost no time to comment on the wording of the census, yet that wording, which guides so much social policy, so much of our understanding of our country and should guide a great deal of our debates in this House, will now be poorly defined. I suspect too that it will be poorly used in policy-making. I hope the Minister will comment on how we might rectify that problem.

I started my speech, as has every other speaker in the House, with the words “My Lords”. When the Minister replies, I suspect he will also start with the words “My Lords”. We are in an institution which is named after the male Members and not the female Members. We do not raise the issue—I am not intending to raise it as a specific, sharp problem—because it is a matter of historical convenience and we like traditions. On occasion, we use language which I suspect would be thought offensive or inappropriate in other circumstances.

We of all people should be extremely sensitive to the way in which the people of this country speak, what it is they expect from us, how they quite rightly expect not to be patronised, and how they expect what we do to be intelligible. We should not abandon that, and that is why the language is vitally important. I thank noble Lords for having listened to what I have said. We have a long way to go to get this right but let us applaud the start we can make today.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Triesman. We have a special connection—in fact, it seems we have two. He was the general secretary of the Labour Party when I was expelled, although the credit for that is always claimed by Mr Anthony Blair and one or two other people. I subscribe to my daughter’s feeling that the only thing wrong with me being expelled was that it was 20 years too late. Our other connection is that I spent five years as chair of the Tottenham Conservative Association; if anyone ever took on a hopeless cause, that is it.

I first thank the Minister for the concessions that are being given, but I would like to ask one genuine question. Lots of people have said they prefer the word “woman” to “mother”. Can I ask him why the Government prefer “mother” to “woman”? They must have debated and discussed it, but no one here seems to agree with them. Obviously, I am not going to divide the House or anything like that, but I would be interested in that.

Another thing, which probably cannot be debated but should be borne in mind, is that someone got the Government into this mess. This came about because the people drafting the Bill messed it up: it is as simple as that. This is not a policy that is wrong; it is a drafting measure. I hope that steps will be taken to ensure that we are not put in this position again, because it is a pretty awful position to be in.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referenced the article by Louise Perry in the New Statesman. It is an excellent article which brings this whole debate into focus. She says:

“the number of people who will benefit from this move is truly tiny: specifically, we are concerned here with trans or non-binary people, who are biologically female, and able to bear a child following any surgical or hormonal interventions … and decide to do so, and care about squabbles over vocabulary.”

There are a lot of qualifications in there. She goes on to apply some figures to a much more serious problem: the number of mothers presenting at maternity clinics who do not have a full knowledge of the English language, let alone these ways of interpreting it, which would mean nothing to them. As she says, “the first maternity appointment” for a person who does not speak good English—I am not talking about no English—takes “twice as long” as it does for those with a good command of the language. As she says,

“Now try adding terms such as ‘chest-feeding’ and ‘birthing person’ to the official forms.”

In other words, you are making great difficulties. I draw attention also to the work of the psychologist Rob Henderson, who describes much of this as “luxury beliefs”:

“ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class”.

There is a wider issue here. We need to be careful to make our legislation and policies relevant to all citizens, particularly citizens who are not necessarily as wealthy as the rest of us.

At the beginning of my career, as a lay trade union official I was told that one of the golden rules was that you should never get further ahead of the membership than they could see and understand what you were signalling them to do. On issues like this, I regret to say that we are tending to get a bit too far ahead of ordinary people and their desires. We are, after all, a Parliament for everybody and not just for a few.

Maybe in 20 years’ time—this was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, among others—this issue will come back to us, having developed more maturely, such that we look at changing the language. That point is far from where we are now. I close by mentioning that my daughter, who is going to have a baby in a few months’ time, thinks this whole thing is “hilarious nonsense”.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will start with what I hope is obvious. Among many others, I consistently supported feminists who campaigned for a wide range of women’s rights including maternity rights. I always supported the rights demanded by the LGBT campaigners for same-sex marriage, adoption and many other entitlements to equality. I always abhorred and campaigned against Section 28. I am grateful for the education and clarity of all those involved for my own political development.

It follows that I wholly support the purpose of the Bill, though I wish it were addressing wider issues. I am also very critical of the language in it for good reason. I cannot accept the slurs levelled at women such as Rosie Duffield MP or JK Rowling for simply acknowledging biological facts. I strongly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and I will back an amendment. The vitriol is ghastly and intended to stop proper debate, to bully and to impose cult thinking on what can realistically be understood only through democratic dialogue.

I trust that nobody will repeat what is sometimes said, and is a slander—that those of us who take this view are transphobic or in the pay of some ultra right-wing organisation here or in the United States. The Government should say today that they will speak up for the people vilified for supporting women’s rights. My objections to erasing words such as “women” and “female” from the description of an individual’s biological sex and their replacement with the tortured formulations of the Bill are simple.

First, legislation must be intelligible and compelling to the people who read it or are affected by it. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, it is very good to know that the Lord Chief Justice understood this. This Parliament is not a private theatre using a private language intended to please a few zealous people. It is a legislature, and legislation belongs to citizens, not to a narrow circle of us. Citizens plainly know that it is women who give birth to babies. Babies are not born of euphemisms.

Secondly, I think most people will find efforts to erase “woman” or words relating to women or their biological sex laughable. We do ourselves no credit by using pretentious meaningless phrases, which nobody would use in their own lives. It patronises people who use plain language about known facts. The Bill, with its laudable purpose, is easy to support. How absurd it would be if its language became a boilerplate for drafting subsequent legislation.

Thirdly, it is an unavoidable and uncomfortable truth that when politicians start using words to describe real people as though they were simply objects—to speak of them as though they are “it”—we erode our sensitivity to the people involved. It was always the way of dictatorships and authoritarians. In our case, it is not what we intend. We probably all accept that it is women who have babies. They are the birth mothers, whoever brings the baby up. However, in this kind of formulation in the Bill, the women and their specific biology become devalued—expunging their recognisable human attributes. In this Bill, let us get rid of foolish metaphors, similes and ill-crafted figures of speech and replace them with everyday English. Our laws and words must never treat people as non-human things.

Finally, like many other noble Lords, I have read the Commons debate and the Minister’s letter to us. I listened carefully to what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, said today. I am sorry to say that the Government have been inaccurate in what they have told us. There was no new legislative edict from Jack Straw, with whom I worked. I will bet no one has even talked to him. He wanted gender-neutral words where possible. There is no need for a word such as “chairman” and it is sensible to use “police officer” or “firefighter” or terms which cover both sexes and any gender choice. In these cases, there is no need or purpose for gendered language. That is what Jack Straw intended.

However, the truth is that legislation on maternity rights, employment data, healthcare provision and many of the things the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others have spoken of, almost only ever refer to women precisely because there is a specific need and specific purpose. This is so that any normal person can read and understand the legislation.

I appeal to the Minister to be truthful about this. Do not hide in the thickets of the Explanatory Notes. Our excellent Library has provided copious evidence in legislation—no metaphors, no similes, no foolish figures of speech. We are not living in a regime which requires or writes its laws and explanations to obscure and confuse its citizens. Our sole aim here is to ensure that senior women politicians have maternity rights, just like other women. Many other rights should have been in the Bill as well, but it at least does that. It does so for their own well-being and that of their babies. It is that simple.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, while it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I cannot follow many of his colleagues in their sycophantic praise of the Prime Minister. Hagiographic comparisons between him and classical heroes are sad, not least because those making them know perfectly well that they are not true.

The negotiations were candidly amateur, as all professional negotiators know. We greatly overestimated the relative strength and size of our economies, and the negotiations were never balanced. We jumped the gun, starting talks before forming any clear position. We fought tenaciously to adopt positions in negotiation that we have no intention of adopting, at least according to the Government. We were confused, and we certainly confused others. We gave up our key card of trust—our attitude to Northern Ireland demonstrated us to be untrustworthy. We prioritised sovereignty, ill defined as it was, over economic objectives—the price apparently worth paying. The price is a totemic gesture to the Conservative Party, and I do mean totemic, because it was certainly never practical. They should know that economic harm inexorably follows, and leads to sovereign harm.

We were never strategic. Running down the clock, leaving no time to get things right, is not a strategic act of genius; it is self-harm. I describe it as amateur night. I make a positive suggestion: let us make sure that when we negotiate on 80% of our economy—financial services—we do not leave it to the amateurs. The FCA has told us that serious problems are coming across the horizon. Let us bring in the grown-ups: people of calibre such as Mark Carney, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, and Alistair Darling; people who do not need the glorification of comparisons with ancient Greek warriors. Let us do the job properly, not just strike the postures.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we are near the end of another long day in an interminable process. After 1,336 days of negotiation we have an outcome that is at best emaciated, even if is an advance on the anorexia of no deal. The Government, and they alone, will certainly own this poor deal. I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, laboured mightily to produce a mouse.

The deal is testament above all to the Government’s narrow English nationalism and exceptionalism in a multinational world—and I do mean “English”. There is little resonance in Scotland and Wales, or among the progressives in Northern Ireland, who have been pushed outside the margins of discussion. It is true that the partial relief of a bare-bones deal gives some businesses and people a workable route ahead. The need for agreement arises, as my new colleague the noble Lord, Lord Austin, powerfully said, because few would be willing to leave the transition period with jobs less secure, environmental standards weakened or health and safety protections reduced.

The huge significance of the UK’s financial and related businesses is almost wholly neglected, despite their importance. The agreement that we will adopt tonight is 1,246 pages long. Its inadequate pages that sort of relate to financial arrangements number 31— 2.4% of the total—so 97.6% of the agreement is silent on 80% of our economy. Banks were consequently, as noble Lords can imagine, hammered in the markets in recent days. Equivalence assessments, passporting, data transfer and the practical alignment required for frictionless trade in financial services were all promised—promises now broken or with a limited shelf life.

My other example, given by many other noble Lords, is the treatment of higher education. I have asked Ministers, including the noble Lord, Lord True, about this for months and I have heard evasions for months. The decision not to include Erasmus, the failure to protect mutual recognition of professional qualifications and the consequences of failure to deal with data transfer are dreadful outcomes for the universities. They harm scholars, institutions and the international research community.

This country will never again make its living by beating metal or digging things out of the ground. Our only future lies in brainpower—innovation, science and cultural production—and brainpower does not recognise border posts. It depends on great international co-operation, yet we have cut ourselves off from its main structures to build a pallid, underfunded alternative that I suspect Alan Turing would have thought derisory. That may be a rationale for a Government whose leadership disparages expertise but, for the rest of the world, it is proof of madness. In the middle of a pandemic, when international research is our greatest hope, we have decided to dismantle its scaffolding.

I will vote for this, but it is Hobson’s choice. We are 25 hours from the onset of a calamity. We will try to make it work, but we will do so without the Prime Minister’s bombast and jingoism, and without the sycophantic praise of his colleagues.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind all noble Lords of the time limit of three minutes.

UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations and Transition Period

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister is obviously very confident that, even without a deal, we will all prosper. I must say, that confidence is not shared by the academic community, which is asking questions that I will put directly to him. Can the Government assure the academic community that it will be an associate to the Horizon Europe programme, which is vital for academic connections and will potentially overcome the damage that has already been done to contracts negotiated over the recent months? Also, will the Government achieve an adequacy agreement so that research data transfer will take place, rather than becoming very much harder? These issues are fundamental to the interests of the United Kingdom.

[Lord True (Con)]

As the noble Lord says, our outstanding academic sector and the adequacy of data are of course extraordinarily important. As he knows, negotiations are continuing, and we must await the outcome.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am sorry, the unmute button did not work for a minute there. I want to make just a few comments. Several times in the course of the Bill, the comment has been made that, being unelected, we should not give advice to the elected House. I suspect that the paradox is that we are not only unelected but we have no vote in the election of the Members of the elected House either.

One of the things that I recall from when I used to have a vote is that, from one election to the next, it never crossed my mind that the exact balance of the value of my vote was an essential component in comparing issues with people in other parts of the country. I can understand the broader argument for equality in voting, but it was never a fundamental issue. The fundamental issue was the quality of representation and the quality of how it was taken into effect in the House of Commons.

It is for these reasons that I have a lot of sympathy for the points made by my noble friends Lord Hain and Lady Gale and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. Many of the distinctive features of the constituencies in this country, which we reflect in other ways as well—in the Barnett formula and other mechanisms—relate to the complexity, size, cultural mix and geography of this country.

I can entirely see why it should be that, after any kind of decision has been taken by the Electoral Commission, Members of the House of Commons, in particular, will want to see whether it makes fundamental sense of the arrangements necessary to get effective representation. Certainly, procrastination can be prevented, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said. It seems to me that we could probably ensure that there are other sensitive mechanisms in this Bill, including ones that allow us slightly greater discretion than the 5%.

This would be valuable if we are to take full account of the geographical character—the distances, mountain ranges and so on. Without these considerations, it seems to me that we are inevitably going to leave people with a lower quality of representation than they would otherwise have. That should certainly be avoided in a Bill of this kind.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, despite what has just been said, it was inevitable that this Bill would arrive here with such obvious defects. Because of the ideological drive to leave at any cost and a Prime Minister who is obviously unable to contain the excesses of her Eurosceptic colleagues, we now have no declared detailed objectives other than that we do not want a fight among them. We have a Bill which is constitutionally deficient, and a Constitution Committee report, introduced by my noble friend Lady Taylor, that is clear and precise, and justifiably tough.

The Bill is deficient on the constitutional issues of granting Ministers untrammelled powers that sideline Parliament, deficient in the neglect of devolved interests and deficient on the human rights implications—and it is all tied to a timetable that is almost certainly incapable of being accomplished. The Bill will need significant amendment if it is to be made simpler and clarified, and it had better be accurate. I thank my noble friend Lady Taylor and also the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for his clarity on this point.

I cannot square the difficulty posed by the problems outlined in the debate with the complacency of Ministers in saying that they have all the aspects covered. This House will expect and welcome a positive attitude to amendments aimed at improving the Bill. Ministers ask us to trust in a bargaining process in Europe where it is plain that the two sides are not even on the same page. These are the same Ministers who will ask us to allow them Henry VIII powers at a later stage, and it is the same Ministers who conducted the referendum campaign on the basis of what I can describe only as deliberate deceit.

I complained about the overstatements on the remain side, unashamedly, and I say to your Lordships that the straightforward lies on the other side have brought our politics to a miserable low, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds said earlier today. We have surrendered our largest constitutional issue in modern times to hucksters and snake oil salesmen. To take these steps on the basis of a referendum conducted in that way will, I suspect, be seen historically as a form of certifiable insanity—a malady comprising crude populism and a sense of profound fantasy.

I do not really want to focus on the economic prospects post Brexit, other than to agree with my noble friend Lord Mandelson, who emphasised a possible route through the miasma: by staying in the single market and customs union while leaving the EU. It is sub-optimal but it is at least an intelligible route. I remind the House that my noble friend was also a former Northern Ireland Secretary and, like the noble Lord, Lord Patten, has grasped the profound danger of dismantling the customs union.

I mean to focus on the subject of defence, if I may, and the alliances which keep our country safe. It is fundamental; if Governments do nothing else they must do this. When we leave the EU, I have little doubt that our erstwhile partners will rate our exceptional forces very highly. They will know that they are capable and do not shrink from tasks that they are set. Even with our capacity sharply reduced by government cuts, our partners will no doubt welcome our contribution to military activity. But we will not be at the meetings or councils where the strategic decisions are discussed and decided. We will be asked to contribute without having helped to decide the objectives. We may try to find ways to take part in discussions—and we should—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Hague, told the European Union External Affairs Sub-Committee, we will have no rights in those forums.

I know with certainty that the United Kingdom will not commit its forces if it cannot share in shaping their objectives. That would be an absurd position for any state to take. When I am told that NATO will fill the gaps—I am completely committed to that alliance—I am not confident. American commitment is at best half-hearted. It is not only what President Trump says, which is bad enough, but the septic pool of populism from which his policies have emerged and which will greatly outlast him. The United States is more isolationist and nationalistic than for a long time, and there is small reason to feel that we have compensating alliances and doctrines. Indeed, the things he has said suggest to me that the underpinning values of NATO are themselves at risk.

At the level of military leadership, we seem ready to give up the positions we have traditionally held, including Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, which was ably filled for many years by General Sir Adrian Bradshaw. My noble friend Lord Robertson, the former Secretary-General of NATO, has asked how a non-EU country can hold that position. It is a good question. We have elected to be marginal and, inevitably, weaker. I hope that the deepening relationship with France and some other countries may partly compensate, but our decline seems obvious and unacceptable. We have not thought it through.

Finally, in starting this process David Cameron turned our country inward. I doubt that I will be reconciled to the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, for example, or to any other zealots for leave, because they want a very different country from the one that I want—and I doubt that they will ever be reconciled to views such as mine. In short, our differences may be resolved if some middle way is found but it is entirely possible that they will never be resolved, at least in a generation. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds put this eloquently today. The ugliness of the debate, the name calling and the lies have all demeaned the United Kingdom. I am afraid that I see a country with deeper xenophobia and more unashamed hate crime than I have ever seen in my lifetime, and with a view of people from other countries which should shame us—and it is getting worse.

Two generations ago, two ladies in my family left Paris, where my family had lived for generations. That was in 1932. Their letters showed that they thought that the French would never resist the Germans when they inevitably advanced on France and that French anti-Semitism would find a terrifying ally. Other members of the family thought that they were mad. Paris? Amazing city. What could possibly go wrong? Well, they left in 1933, and the two of them—and two others who spent the war hiding in Paris’s sewers—survived. The rest of the family went to the extermination camps. For the first time in my life, I know a number of people who are asking the question: when the economy goes pear-shaped and the bogus promises are seen to be the frauds that they have always been, what will happen then, and who will be blamed? How will we avoid repeating some of the mistakes of European history that occur in these circumstances? Their bet will be that the same people historically will be blamed in Europe. Like the Paris relatives, sadly they are beginning to make their plans to leave when it becomes sensible, and in advance of a catastrophe. They are not the familiar lot who plan to leave because a tax increase is rumoured, and do not tell them it cannot happen to them, because it has happened—in our lifetimes and to our families.

If there are serious solutions to taking on crimes and attitudes of prejudice, let us see them, not just hear words about them. Nothing about this outcome is inevitable. But there is a requirement for confidence that people take it seriously and are prepared to confront it and deal with it. If they are not, I fear that the consequences will be as I have rehearsed.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, in a fine speech at the beginning of these proceedings, said that it was not a reform Bill but a dreadfully incoherent transfer Bill. I remind noble Lords that the football transfer window closes at 11 pm tomorrow—about the same time as we will close. Let us hope that Ministers can tell us how Team UK can answer the problems set out in this debate rather better than the authorities in football clubs. No bland assurances—

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I think the noble Lord has got the message.

Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Lord Triesman Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for repeating the Statement made in the other place, and the Foreign Secretary for providing an advance copy of it to the shadow Foreign Secretary, which I have read and which was of great assistance in preparing for our discussion this afternoon.

The events in the Ukraine demonstrate just how dangerous a moment this is. The deaths of more than 80 people and injuries to many hundreds more is ample demonstration of the personal cost to the population of a country eager for democratic change. I join the Government in expressing our condolences to the families of those who have been killed and our profound hopes for the recovery of those who have been injured.

It is far from clear what will happen next. I can see that there are deep differences in the Ukraine between those who want a modern European identity and those turning back towards a Russian, indeed, even, I think it is fair to say, Soviet-style identity. I do not accept, and fear the consequences of, the pejorative name-calling that we have seen in recent weeks. There may be a small number of nationalist extremists in the group who overthrew Mr Yanukovych, but I see no evidence at all that warrants the denunciation of the opposition by Yanukovych’s supporters or, indeed, by the Russian state media, in terms of an uprising of fascism in the country, as they have described it. Using the language of 1941 may be useful to opponents of change but bears no relationship to the real events of today.

What is needed today is systematic constitutional reform. What are needed are democratic institutions supported by popular elections to those institutions. What is needed is a willingness to determine democratically the balances between the different peoples in different parts of the country and the platform for reconciliation that only they can construct. What is decidedly not needed is any Russian statement about the potential need for what it has called “fraternal intervention”. That very phrase has a history, not least from the Czechoslovakian intervention of 1968. It is fundamentally unhelpful to hear that language because it leaves serious ambiguities as to what might happen next. No military intervention would be tolerable, and President Obama is surely right: Ukraine is not a piece on a Cold War chessboard. I assume that Her Majesty’s Government agree with this when they say that this is not a matter of choice between the European Union and Russia for the people of the Ukraine. It is essential that Mr Lavrov understands the goals of greater democracy in that country and a new generation potentially taking up the mantle. The global consequences of any military intervention are unthinkable. Ukraine is, whatever its financial difficulties—to which I must return in a moment—after the European part of Russia, the largest nation in Europe. It is rich in agriculture and many other resources, and in its culture. It stands at a key strategic frontier. Nothing could make a fraught situation worse than if there were to be some form of military intervention.

I make one other observation after talking with Ukrainian diplomats in the past couple of days. For the most part, they have said that they want to turn towards Europe and the EU. These are matters of choice for them, not me, but that is what they have expressed. They see it as a great economic opportunity, which sadly they need greatly, but just as much as a bulwark against corruption and a foundation for a reliable system of rule of law. However, you will find that if you speak to them they also think that the United Kingdom has far too little or possibly even nothing to add to the argument that they want to advance. They will tell you, without much diplomatic small talk, that the United Kingdom’s attitude to Europe is, at best, one of weak co-operation with that body that they aspire to join. At worst, the attitude is one of somewhat bloody-minded hostility likely to be seized on by those who are hostile, for nationalistic reasons, to a Ukrainian future that is more closely bound with Europe. Those diplomats take this matter seriously. Least of all can they understand—and they made this point to me with some strength—how the main party of government here in the United Kingdom left the centre-right Christian Democrat bloc, to which many Ukrainians see themselves as fairly naturally aligned, to gravitate towards a more extreme right alignment that they abhor and think is a risk to their country. That risk is being seized upon by the Russians.

Today the House will want to know what the United Kingdom can contribute to a peaceful outcome. I suggest that it could start by appointing a dedicated special envoy. This is a problem that is not going to go away overnight and will need to be addressed over a period of time. Ukraine’s economy is, as we have heard in the Statement, despite the fundamentals that should augur well, close to being wrecked. Is Russia still willing to contribute the financial support that it has hitherto offered to the Yanukovyck regime, or has that offer been withdrawn? I hope that the Minister will be in a position to tell us.

What contribution does the Foreign Secretary believe the IMF could provide? Two months ago he dismissed the idea advanced by my right honourable friend Douglas Alexander. Yesterday the Foreign Secretary agreed with the idea. Do the Government regret that the past months have drifted by, with the Ukraine drifting towards calamity? Of course conditions would have been needed at all stages, but how is the work on the conditions to be conducted in good time in order to have the impact that we now need it to have—it is plainly needed—yet avoid the mistakes, because the conditions are also about those, made by the Orange Revolution in 2004?

Will the Foreign Secretary call for the renewal of negotiations on the EU association agreement? In doing so, will he emphasise, as he will need to, the United Kingdom’s continuing support for the European Union, so that it is understood to be, in our view, a positive benefit? The Foreign Secretary has been talking to Mr Lavrov, as was said in the Statement, and I sincerely welcome it. Will he make these kinds of proposals to Foreign Minister Lavrov? Will he seek Mr Lavrov’s guarantee that Russia will not encourage south-eastern Ukraine to break away from Ukraine as a whole?

On Syria, we, too, welcome United Nations Security Council Resolution 2139. The position in that country, as the Foreign Secretary says, is grotesque and horrifying. He is quite right. Nevertheless, the humanitarian appeal is in desperate straits. We have called for a new donor conference to build funds that are desperately needed. Will the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, back this call this afternoon? What proposals do the Government have to encourage the regime’s supporters, especially Russia and Iran, to press Syria for a political settlement? There is every reason to think, as the Statement says, that the Syrian regime is not addressing the negotiations with any degree of seriousness. Assad is not serious. What are the Government’s objections to establishing a Syria contact group to encourage negotiations? As the Statement says, the current position is—I use the word used by the Foreign Secretary—“unacceptable”, whether we are talking about the use of chemical weapons or their decommissioning, or indeed anything else that the Syrians were expected to do as a result of the discussions that had begun.

On Iran, I repeat the congratulations offered to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. She probably feels burdened by congratulations these days but, goodness knows, nobody deserves them more. We welcome the framework agreement in Vienna last week. It is helpful and, I suspect, constructive in a limited way. Progress, however, is dependent on Iran sticking to the agreements it made last November. The number of centrifuges is reportedly still in excess of 10,000. A far lower limit was set in November. What steps do Her Majesty’s Government advocate to bring Iran into line with the deal that it itself has agreed? How will the Government here review the sanctions regime? I make none of these final points in order to be negative about what can be achieved or, indeed, about what has been achieved, but I know that these are conditions in which, if pressure is not continued in the right direction, the opportunities for backsliding are profound, and the dangers that come with them are still more profound.

I ask these questions out of sympathy, not hostility, for the objectives that have been expressed in the Statement, but the House will want to know the answers.