Electoral Fraud

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

Will the Minister tell the House whether either the Government or the Electoral Commission have given any thought to following the example of Australia, Luxembourg and a few other countries of making voting compulsory?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government have considered everything, but that is not an idea that has led to enormous enthusiasm within government or, I suspect, within this House.

Syria: Refugees

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly points out that some of the refugees in Jordan are Palestinians who were living in the huge refugee camp in Damascus, which I have visited myself, and who have now been forced, for the second time, to move out to Jordan. The United Kingdom has lobbied very hard for other countries to step up to the mark. We have currently provided more bilateral assistance than any other member state of the European Union. At the last G20, we put pressure on other members to produce more funds and a further £1 billion was pledged. The Russians have contributed only a very tiny amount of humanitarian aid. The amount they have contributed in arms to assist the regime is a great deal larger.

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords—

European Commission: Staffing

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Monday 4th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is widely accepted that a year studying in both French and English in the College of Europe, in Warsaw or in Bruges, is very helpful in getting students accustomed to the ways of Brussels and what is required in the concours. The last Government cancelled the 24 British scholarships for the College of Europe in 2009. They have been partly reinstituted, with five from BIS for British officials next year, and a number of others from the devolved institutions. In addition, a small group of people, which I think includes several Members of this House, have contributed to a private scholarship scheme, which will fund three scholarships this year. So we are working at it and the number of candidates is now rising again.

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister not accept, in spite of what he has said, that many members of the UK public service may have been discouraged from applying for jobs in the Community institutions by the fact that they no longer have an assurance of a return ticket to the UK public service—quite apart from the career difficulties presented by the prospect of a referendum on whether or not we should remain in the European Union?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

All I can say on that is that the evidence is not there. In terms of the secondment of national experts into the European External Action Service, the British are second after the French in the number of those who have succeeded in gaining places; so there is some considerable evidence there. The members of the Diplomatic Service have also been going round to graduate recruitment fairs over the past two years and that has helped to double the number of British applicants for the concours this year.

Digital Strategy

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I had better take that one away and think about it.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, is the Minister aware—I doubt whether he is yet—that one way to acquire digital skills is to have as many grandchildren as possible?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Yes. I have also discovered that one of the ways to go backwards in digital skills is for your son to emigrate. You cannot then ask him to help in the middle of the night.

Syria

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, I hope that I may be permitted to ask a few of the many questions which I would have tried to ask if the Foreign Secretary’s Statement had been repeated in this House today. First, does the Minister accept that even the supply of non-lethal assistance to the so-called Opposition represents a dangerous escalation of our involvement in what is now, and has been for a long time, effectively a Sunni-Shia war? What reason do the Government have for thinking that the Opposition, which HMG have now recognised as the legitimate Government of Syria, would be any more accountable or democratic than the present regime in Damascus?

Secondly, can the Minister confirm that we still support Ambassador Brahimi’s mission? Does he agree that, instead of rubbishing President Assad’s recent interview in the Sunday Times, we should encourage Ambassador Brahimi to follow up President Assad’s offer of unconditional negotiations with such parts of the Opposition as have also expressed their readiness to negotiate?

Finally, I welcome the decision of the United States Government and HMG to withhold lethal military assistance from the Opposition. Are we similarly encouraging our friends in the Gulf to do likewise?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there were a large number of questions there. I say simply that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is meeting Lakhdar Brahimi this afternoon. He is also meeting the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister. The Foreign Secretary and other Foreign Office Ministers are extremely actively engaged. It is not yet a Sunni-Shia conflict. We are all conscious of the danger that it will deteriorate into a Sunni-Shia conflict. Working with the Opposition, we are doing our best to encourage them to represent all the different communities within Syria. Our aim is to bring a negotiated end to the conflict and to prevent it from deteriorating further.

Civil Service: Permanent Secretaries

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Thursday 13th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Prime Minister in speaking to the Liaison Committee in July made clear that he holds very strongly to the Northcote-Trevelyan principles. But one has to modernise to some extent and going further into his speech I was interested by his talking about the gradual opening up of the question of accountability. We are talking about Civil Service accountability to Ministers but also ministerial and official accountability to Parliament. There are some interesting long-term issues here which we need to discuss further. To quote him again:

“I would like to see a gradual opening up of this accountability, with Ministers being given more discretion about permanent secretary appointments, and Select Committees being able to see more civil servants, particularly on implementation and major project issues. Those would be sensible reforms. Let’s do that and see how that works before taking another leap”.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, there was a brief discussion on Radio 4 this morning about whether we should follow the American precedent of fracking oil shale. Does the Minister agree that to follow the other American precedent of politicising the senior branches of the public service would seriously undermine the recommendations of the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1853 for a permanent Civil Service which, I suggest, has done this country and Ministers a considerable benefit since then?

Israel and Palestine: Balfour Declaration

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is very important to give some support to the Palestinian Authority. If Israeli illegal settlements continue to expand, the position of the Palestinian Authority will become impossible. Therefore, although we have done our best as a Government to dissuade the Palestinian Authority from taking this resolution to the UN General Assembly at this point, we understand why it feels it necessary to do so.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration makes this an appropriate moment to recall the understanding in Mr Balfour’s letter to Lord Rothschild that,

“nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”—

a tragic contrast to the continuing breach of Palestinian human rights caused by illegal settlements on the West Bank and by ethnic cleansing in east Jerusalem? Does the Minister also accept that, given the almost unanimous consensus to which he has himself referred, a two-state solution is the only way to resolve this long-running dispute in the interests of both Israel and Palestine? It is entirely logical and right that we should not only give unconditional support to the very modest Palestinian hopes for enhanced membership of the United Nations but encourage our friends and partners to do likewise. Finally, I understand that the Foreign Secretary made a Statement in the House of Commons this morning on this subject. I express some regret that it was not thought appropriate to repeat it here this afternoon.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I reread the Balfour Declaration before I came in and it is a masterpiece of diplomatic drafting. It is not entirely clear and has a number of deliberate ambiguities within it. Her Majesty’s Government are very concerned to bring pressure to bear on all those who have a stake in the negotiations, including the Governments of Israel and the United States, to exert all their efforts now to restart the negotiations. I stress again that time is not entirely with us. We wish to avoid a situation in which opinion in the US Congress, or perhaps right-wing opinion in Israel in an election campaign, might lead to a demand for retaliation for recognition of Palestinian statehood. We are therefore doing our best to promote the two sides being brought together rather than have them score points against each other.

Palestine

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not entirely briefed as to which states recognise Israel and which do not, let alone what the implications of changes in regime might mean for that, but I promise to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, in my Question to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on 13 September, I asked whether he accepted that granting statehood to the Palestinians would not of itself preclude future negotiations. Does the Minister accept that acquiring statehood, rather than inviting punishment from Israel and the United States, would put the Palestinians on a more equal footing with their Israeli negotiators and thus improve the chances of achieving the credible and substantial negotiations that are, as I understand it, the Government's objective?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I repeat that the Government’s primary objective is to press for the resumption of negotiations between the two parties, based on the principle of a two-state solution around boundaries to be agreed but based on the 1967 boundaries. We are conscious that we are slipping away from that possibility for a range of reasons. We are also conscious that if neither side were to believe any longer in the possibility of a negotiated solution, the threat of a return to violence would be real.

Palestine

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Wright of Richmond

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Baroness asks a large number of questions and I will try to answer some of them. The expansion of the settlements across East Jerusalem is illegal under both international and Israeli law, and we deplore that. We recognise the current push for the recognition of a Palestinian state, but such a state needs to be in control of its own territory and to have secure borders. Palestine is still under Israeli occupation and Israel is still the occupying power.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, the reports to which the noble Baroness referred make it abundantly clear that, at the moment, Mr Netanyahu’s Government are not prepared to make any moves on a Middle East peace process in spite of some remarkable compromises apparently made by the Palestinian negotiators. Does the Minister not agree that it is time to recognise publicly that a two-state solution is the only possible remedy for the future of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples? Please may I ask one specific question? There have been press reports that the Government are considering upgrading the status of the Palestinian General Delegation in London to that of a full diplomatic mission. Can the Minister tell us where that now stands and will he do what he can to make it urgent?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that was also a large number of questions. As the noble Lord will understand, it is not the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to comment on leaked documents. The status of the Palestinian papers is still not entirely clear. It remains the settled policy of this Government, as it was of previous British Governments, that a two-state solution of a viable Palestinian state with secure boundaries is the only way to secure a peaceful solution between the two sides.

On the question of the Palestinian General Delegation in London, we are aware of the steps that some other EU member states have taken to upgrade its status in their capitals to diplomatic missions. The same request has been made to the UK, which we are considering in accordance with our long support for Palestinian stakeholding. No decision has yet been taken.