Israel and Palestine

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, the time has come for the active involvement of the regional Arab states in reaching a solution for the whole area. I fear that Israel probably does not take the UK or Europe seriously as impartial fixers, because of their fixation on Israel while they remain relatively silent on terrible situations in, for example, North Korea, Russia and China. Israel sees the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe and this country, connected with intransigence by Palestinians of violence, and that makes Israel more intransigent.

The Kerry proposals are as good as any, but, in addition, Hamas and Gaza must be disarmed, there must be no more tunnels and disarmament must be covered by UN inspectors. We should call on the Palestinians to renounce their arms, recognise their neighbour state and get on with creating a homeland for Palestinians wherever they may be, and not set up another rogue, extremist state. There must be two states. That means that Palestine must recognise Israel. Palestinians have been unwilling ever to accept a Jewish presence and that is more of a problem in the area than the settlements, remembering how Gaza was evacuated. One state, we know, is impossible and has never worked where there is a Muslim majority around the world.

The Palestinians have turned down a two-state solution many a time, while we know that Israel accepts it. The Palestinians need a democratic leader, a man of peace. They must make the citizens of the new Palestine be existing residents and not continue to call them refugees. They must gather in their refugees from the diaspora. If they do not do that, I have to believe that their intention is to overrun Israel. They say that, “Palestine should stretch from the river to the sea”—a Judenrein state—whereas Israel has 1.8 million Arabs.

The solution depends on normalisation. There are many partition states, such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but in the end there must be normalisation.

Regulatory Agencies: Monitoring

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot begin to think who the noble Lord might be referring to, but I look forward with interest to him showing me his Bill.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

Is the Minister aware that all 10 legal regulators, which operate underneath the Legal Services Board, agree that the board and the statute that put it into place are not working well and need radical reform? Can he say whether, if he is in government after May, a new Government will find time to reform it, which is what the regulators all want?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will certainly take that back if I am in government after May. I hope I shall not still be the oldest member of the Government.

Palestine: Recognition

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, with unfortunate timing, this debate is taking place two days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, despite the millions spent on Holocaust education and remembrance, the museums and memorials and the school visits to concentration camps, there is a gap in memory and education that needs to be bridged. The desire and opportunity to murder 6 million people of a different religion whose presence on his territory the murderer resents must not arise again. The message Jews took from the Holocaust was that their nationalism was necessary. It has been a success. Israel is not Saudi Arabia; it is not North Korea, Iran or Pakistan. It is a flourishing and democratic outpost in the desert with an astonishing record. It is a safe haven, an imperative for existence that can be applied to no other country in the world.

Yasser Arafat declared an independent state of Palestine in 1988 and recognition followed from 100 states. The subsequent failure to change anything on the ground demonstrates the truth of the international law on recognition: namely, that statehood has to be founded in fact, not in numbers of recognitions.

As far as this Motion goes, almost every word of it is dubious. There can be no contribution towards a two-state solution because recognition of Palestine, falsely based, will only make the situation more dangerous. There can be no two-state solution unless Palestine recognises Israel, which she has steadfastly refused to do. There is no statehood attaching to Palestine in international law because it does not meet the criteria. A sovereign state of a Muslim Palestine has never existed—not before 1948, and not before 1967. It was Egyptian and Jordanian territory. Ehud Olmert’s offer of a state was rejected in 2009. The intention of many of the players in the region has always been the elimination of a Jewish presence in the area, not the establishment of yet one more Muslim state. The problem with Israel is not that it has displaced anyone; according to its neighbours, the problem is that its population is largely Jewish.

The practical result of a premature state of Palestine would simply be to free up the import of arms into the new state. The aim underlying this move is the takeover of Israel. Why is there no preparation by the Palestinians for statehood? There is no governance structure, no independent administration, no industrialisation and no negotiation of trade agreements with its neighbour, Israel. The state would not be a state in any recognisable form. Its leaders have declared that the current residents, whose status as refugees defies all logic, would remain defined as refugees. They would not be granted citizenship, nor would the state of Palestine open its doors to the Palestinian diaspora—those Palestinians whose miserable lives in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere in the region are worse than the lives of those in Gaza and the West Bank. It has also declared that it would be a Judenrein state, unlike the 1.8 million Arab residents of Israel who have chosen to stay there.

So if a state has no citizens, and will not grant them citizenship in defiance of international law, what would it be for? It would be for a closer jumping-off point for the demolition of the State of Israel in pursuance of the alleged right of return. As other noble Lords have said, Fatah and Hamas want a one-state solution. Why should Israel recognise Palestine if there is no reciprocity but only a step towards elimination in return?

In the climate of extremism that is sweeping Europe, why should a country want to take a step that risks feeding it more? The only purpose is manipulative—to allow Palestinians to pursue claims against Israel at the UN and other international bodies. In the face of what is happening in Europe, what agenda do the proponents serve? Would it not be a good idea to examine the excesses of this position and turn to state building on the ground as an alternative?

Israel’s antagonists often accuse her of apartheid. In the worst times of genuine apartheid in South Africa, Mandela was planning his future independent country’s constitution, educating its leaders, preaching peace, not vengeance, and acting as a statesman. In the early days of Zionism, before statehood, the Jewish residents of what was to be Israel prepared their governance structure, set up the organs of a state, created universities, made the desert bloom, prepared a legal system and a free press, trade unions, hospitals and charities. None of this is present in the Palestinian leadership; nothing is readied. It is not a state under international law, but I have no time to describe that.

The worst element, of course, is that the residents will not be citizens but will be regarded as refugees whose aim is to return to a different state—Israel—rather than establishing citizenship in their own state, and the new state would be wholly dependent on international funds. For it to be recognised now—by the General Assembly, for example—would simply send the message to every other non-state entity in the world, such as the Basque country, Northern Cyprus, the Kurds and even Scotland, to bypass normal laws and claim to be a state. Let there be a two-state solution by all means if the Palestinians will create a homeland, accept the refugees, lay down their arms and be a country of peace.

Courtesy Titles

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to promote equality in the use of courtesy titles.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, while the Government recognise the equality issues surrounding the use of courtesy titles, we have no plans to alter their use due to the complexity of the system and the likelihood of confusion arising from alteration to the long-standing custom and practice governing this matter.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I can assure the Minister that, having looked into the issue, it is not as difficult as he imagines and that there could be change. Does he not agree that equality has to start in this House and that the use of the title “Lady” by the wives of knights and noble Lords is discriminatory unless a title of some sort is also accorded to the husbands of noble Baronesses and dames? Either the title should be used only by those to whom it was awarded, or husbands and wives and partners have to be treated equally.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think the statement that equality must start in this House is one which will be received with surprise by a number of those outside. I thank the noble Baroness for encouraging me to read Debrett’s for the first time. Having read Debrett’s for the first time, I know this is a highly complex issue. I recognise that the use of courtesy titles and titles for the spouses of Peers—which are apparently legal titles, not courtesy titles—has grown up over the past 500 to 600 years. The rapid changes in the relationship between the sexes and in marriage over the past 50 years have, of course, left us with a number of anomalies, of which the Government are well aware, but we are not persuaded that it is urgent to adjust them now.

Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne]

I have some doubts about the proposal being brought forward by my noble friend. I am anxious, of course, that the peerages and baronetcies of Ireland should all be treated fairly and equally if we possibly can, but the fact is, as my noble friend said, that these matters are of extraordinary complexity. We have already dealt with the problems being faced by my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury. My noble friend Lord Caithness described the problems being faced by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. What are we to do about this? At the very least, if we agree some of these amendments, we risk making the Bill a hybrid Bill. Noble Lords smile at that, but the fact is that a hybrid Bill is a very different animal from the one we are considering today. It needs Select Committees, learned counsel and all sorts of distinguished things that take a great deal of time and, no doubt, a great deal of money. My noble friend’s amendment takes us along that rather dangerous path, and I invite him to reconsider it.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, although I am no expert on the hereditary peerage, I entered into a correspondence with the Ministry of Justice—in fact with the Crown Office—on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, told the House at the end of Second Reading that my specific point about husbands—and, indeed, the whole Bill—is a matter for the royal prerogative. According to the Crown Office’s letter, hereditary peerages are a matter of property.

It therefore seems to me to be very simple. Under the European Convention on Human Rights, we may not discriminate on grounds of property. Article 14 says that there shall be no discrimination on, inter alia, grounds of status; it is absolutely straightforward. If hereditary titles are property, we simply cannot discriminate. Under own Equality Acts—we have not yet got to those amendments—we cannot attach conditions to women that we do not attach to men, and vice versa.

The whole Bill therefore boils down to the fact that where there is a title, which is property, there must be equality—no “ifs” or “buts”, no petitions, no waiting for this, no waiting for that. Where people have a title which attaches only to one sex and not to the other, it is against our equality law.

Our only hope of getting this legislation through the House of Commons is to have a straightforward, simple Bill that applies the principles, which we cannot avoid, of the European Convention on Human Rights and our own equality law. We should strip away all the carbuncles and just get down to what has to be done under our law.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, there is a problem with the noble Baroness’s proposition that a hereditary title is property. There is more than one respectable view on that, as I understand it, so it may or may not be property. Another way forward, of course, would be to seek some sort of derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to hereditary Peerages. The Spanish Government are faced with the same problem. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister has some information about how the Spanish Government are responding to this difficulty. They recently created a new hereditary marquis in Spain who turned out to be the coach of the football team. However, they then lost so he may be stripped of it after all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

On a point of order: according to the Crown office—and it should know—it is written in Halsbury’s Laws of England, 5th edition, Volume 79, paragraph 808:

“A peerage is an incorporeal and impartible hereditament, inalienable …”

It is real property akin to land. Of course, even if the Royal Prerogative enters into this, I think it is a lawyer’s point that a parliament can change or nibble away at or remove parts of the Royal Prerogative, so I hope that will not stand in the way.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Baroness for that. I recognise her legal expertise in this area. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that I have not entirely followed the Spanish Government’s debates, and I am sure he could also inform us on the Dutch, Belgian, Italian and Swedish debates on what happens on titles. I can recall a most wonderful evening in Rome, talking to Italian liberals—a nearly endangered species—hosted by a wonderful woman called La Contesssa Machiavelli. This was not at all the content I had in my mind at all. If we are going to make comparisons on titles, there are a lot more: I am not sure whether Andorra—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, some while ago, I was chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Little did I think that that post would have any bearing on today’s debate. Without going into the detail, there is no doubt that modern law, including the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of a couple of years ago, leads us to the situation that children, however they are conceived, enjoy the same rights as those conceived in the natural fashion. In fact, I think that the amendment goes further than is absolutely necessary—it may be a storm in a teacup—because if the child has the gametes of both parents, it is their child. However, the law says that a child born to a surrogate mother is actually the child of the surrogate mother. The law treats the baby as the child of the mother from whose body it emerged. This amendment would achieve something, but if we are ever going to get a general statement of principle from the Government or elsewhere, it will have to be along the lines that the use of in vitro fertilisation techniques, as in other walks of life, will make no difference to succession to titles.

[Lord Jopling]

The noble Baroness may recall that I was heavily involved in the 1990 Act following a constituency case, which I mentioned earlier. The law was changed so that in the case of a surrogacy the genetic mother could get an order from the High Court that she be deemed to be the full mother, not the surrogate mother. In this case, no doubt, the same procedure would have to be followed, as in the High Court ruling. At that stage, the genetic mother would be fully the mother.

Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, there are two elements to this Bill. I am personally affected by only one but there is a common thread that joins the two parts and lies at the root of this very welcome Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—the equality of men and women. We in this House are very ready to impose equality obligations on others and must therefore be equally ready to accept them ourselves. The origin of this debate goes back further than the recent change that gives royal girls equality with royal boys in the succession. For a long time now there have been well founded concerns about primogeniture, title and inheritance of estates; and for more than 50 years the husbands of noble Baronesses, Ladies fortunate enough to be seated in this House, have received second-class treatment compared with the wives of noble Lords. What a contrast that makes with the egalitarian behaviour accorded in practice in this House.

All women in positions created by birth or elevation to a status should be treated as well as the royals and as well as their male peers. If titles matter—and they certainly do when linked to the inheritance of an estate—they must be inheritable by women. If they do not matter, if as no doubt some will say they are trivial and snobbish, then for the sake of equality the only answer would be the removal of the titles borne by the wives of knights and Peers. I rather think there would be something of an outcry if that were to be done, which proves my point.

In relation to primogeniture and estates, there is no reason to think that women are any less capable of managing estates than men, and noble Lords will forgive me for mentioning the alleged incompetence or spendthrift traits sometimes said to have been found in their male ancestors. The dilemma of “Downton Abbey” should be fiction only and not real life, for women’s livelihoods and the future of great estates may depend on inheritance. Moreover, equality in succession would have the welcome side effect of bringing some more women into hereditary Peer positions in this House. So the changes proposed in the Bill must be supported by the Government.

The other part of the Bill that is close to my heart is about an issue that I have addressed before—namely, that the husbands or partners of dames and noble Ladies do not have a courtesy title, while the wives of knights and noble Lords do. Dames and noble Ladies have earned their titles, not inherited them. Yet they receive worse treatment than the Ladies who are married to noble Lords. If a male Peer’s wife is always a Lady, and his divorced wife retains that title, should not the same courtesy be extended to the husband of a woman Peer? Husbands will have done as much, if not more, to support and partner their wives as the women married to noble Lords. When I brought this issue up in 2009 many noble Lords treated it as amusing, but there is a serious point. It is discrimination that a man may confer on his wife an honour that a wife may not confer on her husband or civil partner.

Thus all members of our Supreme Court are Lords with Lady wives, save the one female Supreme Court justice whose husband remains “Mr”. Thus we have the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Lord and Lady but Mr and Baroness or, in my case, Dr and Baroness. There are two possible theories behind this anomaly. One is that there is support of one spouse by another—as they used to say, behind every great man is a great woman—but surely what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Support works both ways. I guess that many is the husband of a noble Lady who has gone out of his way to help her do her work, support her and manage without her company, maybe even more so than the other way round, and they deserve equality of treatment.

The only other possible reason for retaining discrimination is that women, but not men, derive their position in life from their spouses. Indeed, many women have given up the title “Mrs”, preferring “Ms”, precisely because it is the married woman who is marked out by title as the dependant of her husband and not the other way round. Unfortunately, many elements of our family law treat wives as having a place in life wholly dependent on their husbands conferring that place on them, as though the women were piggybacking through life. In many respects, our unreformed family law suggests that a woman is not expected to make her own achievements in life but to rely on her husband or partner for status and financial support. That cannot remain the case. As Aretha Franklin sang:

“Sisters are doin’ it for themselves,

Standin’ on their own two feet ...

We got doctors, lawyers, politicians too”.

The truth is one of mutual support and so the titles must be equal. In these times of change, gender equality is a given, and it should not have taken 55 years for this to be recognised by and in this House. I urge the Government to take up this worthy Bill, which will do a great deal of good and no harm.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I yield to no one in my horror at the use of chemical weapons; and at the deaths so far in the Syrian war of more than 100,000 innocent persons; and at the 1 million or so refugees displaced, whose situation in the desert with no basic facilities for their children, such as education, will reverberate across the region long after Assad has gone from the scene. Where, incidentally, did those chemical weapons come from? Can we cut off the supply? How fortunate it is that Syria’s nuclear reactor was knocked out a few years ago. It might otherwise have been used.

What, then, do we do? Punishment and reaction there has to be. That is easy enough to say, but what should it be? I have given up any hope of referral to the International Criminal Court; that cannot happen. In brief, it seems to me that the arguments against any military intervention outweigh the arguments, moral and political, for military intervention.

My first reason is that the consequences could be irreversible and incalculable: not least, more terrorism on our streets. This we have learnt from previous incursions into the Middle East—although I must say that fear should not shape our foreign policy.

The second reason is that the public are against it both in the US and the UK as shown by the opinion polls. We will have a repeat of the demonstrations that we had against the Iraq war and it is surprising that there have not already been more demonstrations on our streets of the revulsion felt against Syrian actions.

The third reason is that it is too late. As Kissinger said in relation to the Iran/Iraq war,

“It is too bad they both can't lose”.

There may have been an earlier time when the west could have intervened, but to do so now is to take sides without the real possibility of achieving anything. Regime change will not happen. Civilians will undoubtedly be caught up and there will be retaliation.

Fourthly, we cannot afford it. Thousands of UK Army personnel were made redundant very recently. Defence cuts have left us weak and we seem to have different priorities for spending. I heard recently that we had spent three times as much on welfare, rightly or wrongly, as on defence.

Fifthly, I have not heard what our strategy is. Do we have an exit plan? How long will the intervention last? When can it be said to have been successfully accomplished? What if Assad or whoever the culprit is has more stocks of chemical weapons and is able to import more? What will our reaction be if the slaughter spreads to neighbouring countries? Since Russia is involved, this possible exercise will not be like the one undertaken in, say, Kosovo. If the US and the UK did not finish what they started and Assad survived and continued, American credibility and our own would be damaged and Iran, for example, will see that the West is impotent in relation to its collection of nuclear material. In the mean time, we are taking our eyes off the Egyptian situation, Iran and Iraq.

The struggle in Syria will not be ended by air strikes or even the delivery of arms to acceptable rebels. There will be a showdown with Russia and reverberation across the Middle East and at home. We have never taken the moral action that maybe we should have in relation to, say, the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the protection of North Koreans, with as many horrors, because of the strength of Russia and China and their presence on the United Nations Security Council. Our morality is selective.

Is intervention better than non-intervention? I am afraid not. Would intervention prevent a repeat? I fear not. Is there a less bloody act of retribution? I cannot think of one. I am disappointed at the failure of action of the United Nations due to its structure and indeed the failure of the European Union in this foreign policy area. There has been a low-key call from Europe for a diplomatic push. I would have expected a stronger voice of leadership on this issue. If there is a failure of our international organisations, we will have a resurgence of the strength of individual nation states and religious sectarianism and violence. That is because we do not have the strong international organisations that we need at this moment.

Order of the Companions of Honour

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a little wide of the mark. It is appropriate to pull the subject back towards the Question by saying that the Order of the Bath has a particularly strong military connection, as the noble Lord well knows. Every time I give a tour of the Abbey, which I do from time to time as a former chorister, I remark that one sees the military banners up in Henry VII’s chapel.

[Baroness Deech]

What proportion of the Companions of Honour are women? Is the noble Lord satisfied that the highest honours which can be awarded, including the Order of Merit, satisfactorily represent the contribution of women to the achievements of this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is an extremely good question. We are very conscious of the imbalance in gender terms of almost all the orders and honours which are awarded. Only four of the 41 members of the Order of the Companions of Honour are women. However, nearly half the honours awarded in the latest New Year Honours List—47%—were awarded to women, although the majority of those were at what one has to call the lower levels of honours, not the higher. That, of course, partly reflects the continuing imbalance in society and the economy. Since John Major’s changes in 1993, it is open to all British citizens to nominate people for honours. There were 3,000 nominations last year. I encourage everyone to think very actively who else, particularly among distinguished women, might be nominated for orders.

Israel and Palestine

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, on all sides of the House noble Lords are united in willing peace in the world, whether it be in Israel, Palestine, Syria, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, and also Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran—the list is only too long. Indeed, in the previous parliamentary Session there were no fewer than 706 Questions on Israel and Palestine.

What contribution can and is being made by NGOs and the civil population? Are there instances when NGOs fan the flames rather than promote peace? Peace will come when Palestinian refugees are treated like other refugees in the world. Why are they kept in the state they are in, unlike the millions displaced at the end of World War Two, for example, from Pakistan, Cyprus, India, Germany and Jews from Arab countries? The NGO that militates against peace is the UN Relief and Works Agency—UNRWA. To an outsider, UNRWA seems a humanitarian group helping Palestinian refugees. In reality, it undermines the chances of Arab-Israeli peace and holds Palestinians back from rebuilding their lives. It was set up to take care of the Arabs of the British Mandate. It began with some 700,000 charges and now has more than 5 million. It perpetuates their refugee status, unlike the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that takes care of 50 million refugees with half the budget of UNRWA.

The issue is that UNRWA counts as refugees not only those displaced in 1946-8 but their descendants down to the fourth generation, including many who have never—and whose ancestors never—set foot in Israel and who are not in need. There are actually only 30,000 refugees properly defined under the UN definition of a refugee. The UN definition specifically excludes any person who has acquired a new nationality. UNRWA is the only refugee organisation in the world that considers citizens of another state to be refugees, and includes all descendants of original male refugees. On that basis, there will be a lot of refugees sitting in this House.

However, UNRWA does not push for citizenship in the host countries of others. Its budget is $1.23 billion over two years—98% of which comes from Europe, the US and Canada, while the oil states give only 2%. It has become an industry in itself, with 29,000 employees, overwhelmingly Palestinians, while the UNHCR has a mere 7,600 employees. There is one worker for every 157 Palestinian refugees. It needs reform. By limiting its largesse to those in need it should ensure that it is not partisan and that the children in its schools get a balanced and discrimination-free education and are not taught to hate Israelis and to glorify terrorism and suicide bombings. It should accept, and teach children to accept, the right of self-determination for all people, Israelis as well as Palestinians. In fact, UNRWA’s functions would be better transferred to other UN agencies and to the Palestinian Authority and it would be better if it were dissolved.

I do not have time to mention the noble NGOs other noble Lords have described, but I want to draw attention to the magnificent collaboration going on in medical research, in particular in Ben-Gurion University in Israel where researchers collaborate with Arabs on identifying a defective gene that causes a fatal calcium deficiency in Arab children. Professor Margalith of that university won the Tyler Prize for work on malaria and collaborated with Palestinian and Jordanian scientists to eradicate mosquitoes.

The Government should be spending their cash—and I hope the Minister will answer—on NGOs that work for coexistence, not those that are partisan. What can civil society in Britain contribute? Unfortunately, in the view of some, anti-Semitic language has entered the mainstream of political discourse here. You could argue that Israel behaves in the way she does in part because the lessons learnt from the Holocaust were that she can never rely on the armed strength or support of others. Trying to play down the goal and intention of the Holocaust, as we saw recently, or throwing around the word “apartheid” simply reminds Jews in Israel, and maybe elsewhere, how fragile is the barrier against their destruction in every generation. Support for Israel by churches and politicians here would do more than anything else to encourage Israel to take the brave steps it needs to take—steps that it thinks will endanger its existence.

Terezin Declaration: Holocaust Era Assets

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that fellow signatories to the Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era Assets fulfil the obligations of the Declaration in relation to the restitution of wrongfully seized property.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I start with a quote from Bazyler:

“Holocaust restitution is not about money. It is about victims. It is about individuals who have waited for over 60 years for something. Of course, it is not about perfect justice, but it is about waiting for some recognition to validate the misdeeds that have been perpetrated. . . Holocaust restitution is not only about the victims. It is also about those who victimized. It is about satisfying the need for a moral accounting regarding the horrific events of the second world war and some of the communist depradations thereafter”.

The trauma of human loss was so great that no discussion of material loss occurred for decades after the war. Only the Germans made reparations for about 50 years from 1945, to their credit. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communist regimes, not only did walls fall, but doors were opened to memories, to archives, to litigation and legislation, to honest property titles supported by law, to negotiation and to the facing up to the unresolved issues of the past. There is unfinished business, and sadly those most affected, the survivors, are now in their 90s, and for decades have been frustrated in their relatively modest aims. I feel a personal responsibility for them and for those for whom it is too late, and I declare an interest as a descendant of those from whom property was taken, although I am uncertain about title and the possibilities of claim because I have no way to ascertain ownership and sale.

There has been a series of conferences on restitution, culminating in the conference that resulted in the Terezin declaration, the 2009 Prague conference on holocaust era assets. Adopted by 47 countries, including the UK, the declaration called for participating states to meet the social and medical needs of the half a million survivors, of whom half are on the poverty line; it called for the restitution of wrongful property seizures, forced sales and sales under duress in the Nazi period; it called for the identification and restitution of cultural property seized by the Nazis; and it called for open access to archival material, the preservation of memorials and for measures to combat anti-Semitism.

In 2010, there was a follow-up conference, which produced guidelines relating to best practice in property restitution, the most intractable problem. Solution would remove the cloud that hangs over the title to many properties in eastern Europe. The guidelines apply to communal and personal property and state that the compensation process should be accessible, simple, expeditious, avoid residency and other onerous requirements, and be of low cost. States should open their archives to assist in the proof of title, which should not be too onerous, while respecting the occupancy rights of those who are current residents in good faith. Poland, which attended the Terezin conference, did not sign up to the guidelines.

The achievements in this field, even before Terezin, are considerable. There have been settlements of the issues relating to dormant bank accounts in Switzerland, and to unclaimed insurance benefits. There have been payments to former slave labourers, and there has been some restoration of communal religious property. The Czech Government have established the European Shoah Legacy Institute in Prague to supervise follow-up.

Some countries which had formerly neglected the topic have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, legislation for the return of or compensation for stolen property—they are Turkey, Latvia, Hungary, and Lithuania. The UK, to its great credit, enacted the Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act 2009, and the significant contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Janner, in taking this forward must be recognised. The checking of the provenance of artworks which might have changed hands in the Nazi period is now routine. The UK has also appointed the first envoy for post-Holocaust issues, the distinguished diplomat Sir Andrew Burns. In addition, the Wiener Library in London hosts, from 2011, the International Tracing Service, a digital record of 17.5 million people of the Holocaust. All those involved are deeply grateful to the UK for this move.

The Government of Israel were previously reluctant to get involved, and many of the survivors there felt that to accept any tainted money, as they saw it, was immoral. But they have now set up a database of half a million pieces of stolen property called Project Heart. The list was compiled from European archives, and the plan is to move to legal and public action to stimulate the co-operation of countries that have not done the right thing so far.

However, problems remain. Too many states only allow claims for property taken in too narrow a time band, require current citizenship, or place impossible evidentiary burdens on claimants, when of course they must know that those who were killed or fled did not preserve title deeds. The pursuit of legal action inside a foreign country is prohibitively difficult, and the European Court of Human Rights too slow.

The worst offender, however, is Poland. It remains the only major country in the former Soviet bloc and now in Europe that has no law providing for restitution or compensation for private property stolen during the Holocaust. Poland was home to 3.3 million Jews before the war, of whom 90 per cent were destroyed, leaving behind their homes. On 13 occasions there has been Polish draft legislation, the most recent abandoned this year. Restitution had been made a condition of Polish entry to the EU, but was dropped at the last minute due to the country’s economic conditions. However, Poland is now one of the few European countries to have avoided the recession, and had a 4.3 per cent growth in GDP last year. This year Poland also abrogated the mechanism to facilitate the return of communal property seized by Nazi and communist decrees, before the work was finished.

We call on the UK Government to persuade Poland to participate in the 2012 conference on this topic, to disregard communist nationalisation of property seized by the Nazis, to assist in the creation and operation of a restitution mechanism, and to support the USA in its approaches to Poland.

The model restitution programme is that of Austria, which in 1938 forced Jewish property sales and forced Jews out of the professions. In 2001 Austria established a General Settlement Fund to resolve all remaining issues. The Austrian Government set up a three-person claims committee to receive claims, using relaxed standards of proof—for example, the 1938 property records, witness statements and birth certificates. The Austrians put $210 million into the fund, with extra for insurance claims. Claimants no longer had to take legal action at their own cost. The committee dealt with 20,000 claims relating to 240,000 individuals before closing its work. This model should be promoted by the UK Government for all outstanding eastern European issues. Archives need to be opened and an office has to help the elderly claimants with their research. I trust that this will be the UK’s programme when it attends the conference this year.

Sharansky said that the Holocaust was not only genocide but the greatest theft in history. Justice is in sight if the UK will use its good offices to ensure the implementation of the Terezin declaration.