European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lady Hermon and Caroline Lucas

Report stage: First Day: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I rise to speak to new clause 7, which is in my name and is supported by Opposition Members. I hope to push it to a vote. The new clause would transfer article 13 of the Lisbon treaty into UK law, so that the obligation on the Government and devolved Administrations to pay due regard to the welfare requirements of animals as sentient beings when formulating law and policy is not lost when the UK leaves the EU.

You will be glad to hear that I can be brief, Mr Speaker, because there is no need to set out again the case for transferring this obligation under EU law into domestic law. In Committee, the then Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), rejected my similar new clause and, I would suggest, inadvertently misspoke in the House in the process by stating that the sentience obligation

“is already recognised as a matter of domestic law, primarily in the Animal Welfare Act 2006.”—[Official Report, 15 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 499.]

That was simply incorrect, and there can be no disagreement about that because the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has since published a new draft Bill providing for the transfer into UK law of the obligation on animal sentience set out in article 13.

The Government therefore accept that they need to do what my new clause provides for, and the simplest thing would be for the Minister to accept it or, if the specific wording is considered deficient in some way, for him to bring forward a revised version as a Government amendment. As this has not yet happened—I will gladly give way to the Minister if he wants to say that the Government will accept the new clause—I can only assume he will say that the Bill is not the right legislative vehicle for the new clause: in other words, that a Bill to transfer the body of EU law into UK law is not the right legislative vehicle to transfer an important piece of EU law into UK law. To me, at least, that does not make sense.

[Lady Hermon]

I am very pleased to speak in support of the new clause brought forward, once again, by the hon. Lady. I am particularly pleased to see that it extends not just to Ministers in this Parliament, but to those in the devolved institutions. My one concern is that the wording could have been stronger by creating an obligation to uphold respect for animal sentience, rather than just having due regard to it.

[Caroline Lucas]

Yes, in theory, I agree with the hon. Lady that the wording could be stronger. I was trying to be careful to avoid an accusation of gold-plating EU legislation, so I simply looked at the wording of article 13 and tried to bring that over from EU law into UK law. If we were starting again, I certainly agree that we could make the wording stronger.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lady Hermon and Caroline Lucas

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

rose—

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

ISIL in Syria

Debate between Lady Hermon and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). Although I do not agree with the position he put forward, I think he put it very clearly and passionately, for which I thank him. I thank the armed forces for the work they do.

I share the horror and revulsion at recent atrocities in Paris, Beirut, Syria itself and elsewhere. yet I have still to hear convincing evidence to suggest that UK bombing of ISIS targets in Syria is likely to increase our security in Britain or help to bring about a lasting peace in the region. On the contrary, the evidence appears to suggest that it would make matters worse. I want to highlight that in the few minutes available.

If we are interested in evidence, a good place to start might be to examine the effect of the US-led bombing campaign so far, explore whether it has been successful and see whether our contribution would make a real difference. From what I have seen, the sustained bombings to date have not done much to push Daesh into retreat. According to the latest figures from the US Department of Defence, US-led forces have flown some 57,000 sorties, while completing 8,300 airstrikes over a 17-month period, but they have relatively little to show for it. While the air war has so far killed an estimated 20,000 ISIS supporters, the number of fighters ISIS can still deploy—between 20,000 and 30,000—remains unchanged.

Moreover, there are very real dangers that airstrikes on Syria have become increasingly western-driven. All four of the middle eastern states previously involved—Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—have now withdrawn. That risks feeding the Daesh propaganda, in which it presents itself as the true guardian of Islam under attack from the crusader west. Although utterly pernicious and wrong, precisely that message is being reinforced by western bombings, with every indication that the attacks are an incredibly effective recruiting sergeant. According to US intelligence sources, last September, 15,000 recruits were reported to have joined Daesh from 80 countries; a year later, the figure has risen to 30,000 recruits from 100 countries. I have had no reassurance that western military action would not simply drive more recruitment.

I have not heard any evidence to contradict the conclusion of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report about the military challenges. The report very clearly stated that its witnesses did not consider that extending air strikes into Syria

“would have anything other than a marginal effect.”

Indeed, as other Members have pointed out, far from the issue being a lack of allied aircraft above Syria, the real problem is actually a shortage of viable targets on the ground. The dangers are compounded by ISIS’s deeply cruel use of human shields, which makes targeting more difficult and will add to the civilian death toll.

There is much talk of focusing on Raqqa, but according to recent exiles, many in the ISIS leadership have gone to ground in places such as Mosul. They suggest that to get rid of ISIS in a city like Mosul, which has 1.5 million people and perhaps 150,000 ISIS terrorists, we would literally have to flatten the entire city.

Those of us who are sceptical about the use of airstrikes are often accused of saying that we do not want anything to happen and that we want inaction. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Government can and should be playing a role in brokering peace and stability in the region. The Prime Minister could be redoubling his commendable efforts to find a diplomatic solution. The civil war is inextricably linked to the rise of ISIS in Syria, as the Foreign Affairs Committee report emphasised repeatedly. ISIS flourishes where chaos reigns, so renewed efforts are needed to end the Syrian civil war.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

Is the hon. Lady inviting the House to ignore completely UN Security Council resolution 2249?

[Caroline Lucas]

That resolution calls on us to use “all means”. I want to make sure that we are using all of the means short of military action. [Interruption.] I do not believe that we are doing that and I do not believe that we should use military action unless there is evidence that it would make things better. There is laughter on the Government Benches at the idea that we might not want to take military action if there is no evidence that it will work.

One reason I do not want to use military action is that there are no ground forces. We have heard again and again that air strikes will not work without ground forces, yet when we ask where the ground forces will come from, it turns out that they are mythical—they are “bogus battalions”, as the Chair of the Defence Committee said.

Let us not suggest that those of us who do not think that there is an instant military answer are not just as committed to seeing an end to ISIS as those on the other side of the House who seem to think that there is a military answer. All of us are committed to getting rid of ISIS. Some of us are more committed than others to looking at the full range of measures in front of us and to looking at the evidence that suggests that bombing, to date, has not been successful.

I was talking about the other measures that I would like to see taken forward. I talked about the diplomatic efforts, building on the Vienna peace talks. The diplomatic effort must extend to Iraq, where the Abadi Government must be encouraged to reach out to the neglected Sunni minority, especially in those parts of the country where ISIS is recruiting.

Why are we not applying sanctions to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have turned a blind eye and allowed the flow of finance to ISIS and, potentially, other terrorist groups? Why are we still selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, when they are then used in a vicious and destabilising war in Yemen that has killed thousands and made millions homeless, and that is creating yet more chaos in which al-Qaeda can thrive? Why are we not putting pressure on Turkey over the oil sales and the transit of fighters across its border?

Why are we not doing more on refugees? We should have more refugees here in the UK—of course we should—but we should also put more pressure on our allies to put more resources into the refugee camps in the region. I appreciate that the Prime Minister has done a lot on that. This country has been good on that issue. Let us make sure that our allies do the same, because those refugee camps are becoming absolutely desperate. It is cold, there is more poverty and desperation, and we can be sure that ISIS will be recruiting in those refugee camps too.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lady Hermon and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the Minister for that. If it is all happily happening as he suggests, I hope that he will be able to agree to new clause 12. I suspect it is not happening, which is why young people in my community tell me that they feel that the Prevent approach is stigmatising. That is not a criticism of the local people in my constituency who are doing their very best to deal with what they themselves feel is not a terribly helpful approach. It is a criticism that echoes what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) just said about the feeling that the approach targets people in a very stigmatising way, as though they are the problem, rather than asking the wider questions we have a responsibility to ask about how and why people become radicalised. If we ask those questions, we might find ourselves rather more responsible for some of the answers, in the broadest sense, than if we simply assume that this is somehow outside our control and our responsibility.

[Lady Hermon]

rose—

[Hazel Blears]

rose—

[Caroline Lucas]

I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who had a difficult choice to make. I am curious about why she did not look a little closer to home at the best practice that has worked in Northern Ireland. We have former republican terrorists who have committed the most appalling terrorist crimes and former loyalist terrorists who have committed equally appalling crimes, including just murdering Catholics because they were Catholics, who have turned their back on violence and turned young people away from the path of violence in Northern Ireland. She has cited what has happened in Denmark and Germany, but I say to her that good lessons could be learned from experience in Northern Ireland.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for a well made contribution. She was perfectly right to make such a point, and it does not undermine the position that I am advancing. Indeed, I would love to learn more about the experience she describes. I suspect that the success of the scheme was not achieved by making people feel excluded or terrified about coming forward. I worry about the context in which we are having this discussion, which is the proposed legislation that the Government are setting out right now.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lady Hermon and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene on what is a very interesting contribution. Will she clarify a small point, but one that is of great significance to those in Northern Ireland? I am following the logic of her argument. Under schedule 2 to the Bill, those in England and Wales can avail themselves of same-sex marriage. As soon as they go to Northern Ireland, however, that marriage would have to be treated as a civil partnership. Is the logic of her argument that the state that passed the legislation must also compensate those who regard themselves as married couples in England and Wales, but become civil partners again in Northern Ireland?

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. Given that we are talking about a symbolic apology, it would be generous and appropriate for it to be offered in Northern Ireland too. My argument is not a narrow legal argument. A wrong was done. To the extent that the wrong was done by the Government, one can make an argument that the measure is relevant only to those who were living in the country at that time.

[Lady Hermon]

It is very generous of the hon. Lady to take a second intervention. Just to be clear, I was not making a recommendation that compensation be paid by the state. I was simply asking the hon. Lady whether her amendments would oblige the Government to pay compensation in the circumstances she outlined. Is the logic of her argument that she would advocate compensation in Northern Ireland? I certainly am not doing so.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification. In that case, my answer is simple: yes, I would.

Amendment 22 would remove any reference to compensation and deal specifically with the reinstatement of marriages in cases where couples had their marriages annulled, so that a person could obtain a gender recognition certificate and continue to live together without forming a civil partnership. In cases where civil partnerships were formed after forced annulment, I am pleased that the Bill provides some assistance. Under clause 9, a couple are permitted to convert their civil partnership into a marriage to be treated as having subsisted since the date the civil partnership was formed.

Couples who were forced to annul a marriage and enter into a civil partnership will not be able to rewrite history—at least not legally—but it will almost be as if there was no break in their marriage, which of course they never wanted to annul in the first place. These are not the only cases, however, and we must ensure that all cases are covered. As a result, amendment 22 is designed to help couples who annulled their marriages so that one person could get a gender certificate, but who did not then enter into a civil partnership. As far as possible, the injustice that they have also faced must be addressed.

When the issue was discussed in Committee, the Minister expressed sympathy for couples who had been required to make the difficult choice of whether to end their marriage to enable one of the parties to obtain gender recognition, but she said that she could not support an amendment that sought to reinstate marriages from the date they were annulled because of the difficulties that could be caused with any rights and responsibilities that the couple had accrued since their marriage was annulled—for example, retrospective entitlements to benefits and taxation.

In order to help the Government and make some progress, in this version of the amendment, I and the hon. Member for York Central are proposing that reinstatement of the marriage be from the date that the couple gave notice to have it reinstated. This would address Ministers’ concern about retrospective legislation. It is not ideal. I would much prefer a fully retrospective measure, but given what the Minister said in Committee, it would be better than nothing for this small but greatly wronged—I still believe—group of people. Couples were forced to make a distressing and appalling choice, largely because policy on same-sex marriage was lagging so far behind what was right and just. I hope that we can use the window of opportunity in this historic Bill to do the right thing.