Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill [HL]

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, it is pleasure to rise from these Benches to support the Private Member’s Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. It is also something of a relief that the debate on this Private Member’s Bill has been somewhat more consensual than that on the previous Bill, in which I found myself in the unusual position as being on the opposite side from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, which was a slightly uncomfortable position to be in.

This is a Private Member’s Bill to which we have heard no opposition from any part of your Lordships’ House. We heard the Minister’s noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth say that he hopes that the Minister will bring some words of comfort from His Majesty’s Government. I have been in your Lordships’ House for nearly a decade. I have rarely heard from the Government Front Bench words that lead us to think that a Private Member’s Bill is going to be warmly accepted, but on this topic, I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give some positive responses.

Over many years the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, have spent much of their time in your Lordships’ House, in ad hoc committees and in other places arguing that we need to take the crime of genocide seriously, calling on His Majesty’s Government to look at particular cases and acknowledge that they are, or could be considered, genocide. Although the present Bill is not about genocide determination, the House of Lords Library briefing for today reminds noble Lords of the words of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, in previous debates.

We have heard many times that the Government are not able to act because the issue of genocide is for courts to determine—yet, as the present Bill and the Library briefing both make clear, under the genocide convention the Government have a duty to prevent genocide. It is not simply that we need to say, “We are not happy with this”; we have a duty to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, parliamentarians cannot do that—we cannot individually prevent or punish genocide—but His Majesty’s Government and other sovereign Governments are in a much better place, precisely because of their embassies and high commissions, to understand what is going on on the ground. The Bill, which I suggest is not as modest as some Private Members’ Bills—it is very ambitious—would pave the way for the Government to be able to do what the UK needs to do in performing its duties under the convention.

We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Polak, a reminder that the Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers. The same has been true of other genocides. Something does not happen at the point where hundreds of thousands or millions of people are being killed or potentially fleeing for their lives; there is a much more insidious process. Recently, for our debate for Holocaust Memorial Day, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust reminded Members, in a very helpful briefing, of the stages of genocide.

By the time your Lordships’ House talks about genocide, it is usually at a point where we are saying that there already is or has been genocide—in Darfur, of the Uighurs or of the Yazidis. We need to raise issues and find a vehicle for exploring the potential for genocide before it happens—before it is too late. We heard from my noble friend Lord Hussain that His Majesty’s Government need to look at the situation in Kashmir, and maybe the Foreign Secretary, for example, should be talking to his opposite number in New Delhi. We need to be thinking and exploring issues ahead of time, and the Bill gives us and the Government the opportunity to do that.

We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the situation in Darfur and how he has been told that there is further potential for a new genocide there. If one goes to Bosnia and Herzegovina, one finds that “remember Srebrenica” is not just a slogan; it is an everyday injunction. There is still concern there about Republika Srpska and concern on the ground about the situation. We should never be complacent as a Parliament or as a country.

The Bill offers His Majesty’s Government the opportunity to act, and it would hopefully empower the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, to do many of the things from the Front Bench that he has often said he wished he was able to do—but these things were for courts to decide and for other people to do. I am not sure I expect the Minister to accept the Bill as it is enshrined today, but perhaps he could give us some suggestion of the Government bringing forward their own proposals that would have the same purpose as this eminently welcome Private Member’s Bill.