Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we were foreshadowed a Statement on Afghanistan earlier today which I understand is, unfortunately, not taking place because there has not been agreement in the usual channels that it is a priority? Might I say to my noble friend that, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, we are sorry that an important issue such as Afghanistan is not being addressed when it should be, given the number of casualties that we are still encountering there?

On the Statement on the Middle East, I will try to be extremely brief because I know that several other noble Lords will want to get in. However, the Statement says that the transitional Government “should” include all parties in the new governance arrangements in Egypt. I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary had any reassurance that a broad swathe of existing parties—including the smaller liberal, secular ones—would indeed be brought into that transitional Government.

On assets, the Foreign Secretary stated that he would work with the EU and with other partners. While that is extremely welcome to us, the Statement calls for the freezing of the assets of Egyptian officials. That sounds to me rather narrow, as often we know—certainly from the Ben Ali family as well as the Mubarak family—that there are allegations that the extended family members hold significant assets abroad. The Statement seems to talk about just officials, so I would like some reassurance from my noble friend on whether existing money-laundering laws will apply to the assets of wider family members, if they are found to be under suspicion in that regard.

On Bahrain, I suppose that my noble friend will not have seen the report of Amnesty International that came out just about an hour ago. However, human rights abuses continue unabated in Bahrain—as he knows, because I have discussed it with him in the past. I hope that we will look at that report extremely carefully to see how we might indeed be a candid friend to Bahrain, particularly as I understand that we are involved in training the security services there.