BBC World Service

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I will have to write to the noble and learned Lord on that one.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, did the Minister see the comments in yesterday’s edition of the Independent by Justice Michael Kirby, who chaired the recent commission of inquiry established by the United Nations to investigate human rights abuses in North Korea? He said that the extension of BBC World Service transmissions to North Korea—

“a country that has been largely cut off from the rest of the world”—

would make a considerable difference in fighting against those abuses of human rights. Given our Article 19 obligations and the BBC’s historic role in promoting democratic values above the heads of dictators, is this not a moment for the Government to urge the BBC World Service to play its part?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord has asked me this question on a number of occasions; indeed I have answered it here from the Dispatch Box and also written to him. As he and other noble Lords may be aware, in 2013 the World Service reviewed the possible options for a Korean language service and concluded after a fact-finding mission that questions of likely audience reach, cost and technical feasibility meant that such a service was not appropriate at this stage. I am aware of the UN commissioner’s report. The noble Lord will be aware that that contained two quite specific approaches to how engagement could happen: the first was through the broadcasting route and the second through encouraging people-to-people contact. We are one of the few countries that has extensive people-to-people contract because of our embassy in North Korea. The UN report also recognised that that is one of the ways in which we can engage in dialogue.

Afghanistan: Protection and Women’s Safety

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

For the sake of noble Lords who do not understand what the noble Baroness and I are talking about, this is in relation to a particular piece of legislation that effectively meant that members of a family could not give evidence against other members of that family. The drafting of that legislation was unfortunately supported by the UN, specifically in relation to drugs crimes, where it was felt that family members would potentially support the accused in court by giving false evidence. Unfortunately, it was a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing, and the international community’s concern is that this legislation will be used against women who want to give evidence, for example in the case of domestic violence or abuse. The President has issued a decree to ensure that this does not happen. We are confident at this stage that the parliamentary majority required to overturn that decree does not exist and the timetable within which it has to be overturned is too short. We are therefore confident in hoping that the decree will stand.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the noble Baroness seen yesterday’s report by Carolyn Wyatt for the BBC, which said that half of all children under five in Afghanistan are suffering from the effects of malnutrition? Given the reported comments by Médecins sans Frontières during that broadcast, saying that the principal reason for this is the confinement of women to their homes, leaving them without access to clinics, knowledge or available food or medicine, can we look at the MSF initiative of reaching out directly to mothers and targeting support to them?

[Baroness Warsi]

The situation in Afghanistan still has some way to go, as the noble Lord says. I was aware of that report but perhaps we may focus slightly on the positive. The noble Lord may be aware, certainly if you go back to 2001 and consider the number of women who are now receiving postnatal and prenatal care, that around 50% of women now have access to those maternity services—some three times more than about a decade ago.

Syria and the Middle East

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for tabling this Motion for debate today and for the tone that she set in her opening remarks. I refer the House to my non-financial interests as honorary president of UK Copts, a board member of the Aid to the Church in Need charity and a patron of various human rights groups that work in the region.

Earlier in our debate, my noble friend Lord Wright of Richmond made an important and authoritative speech. I entirely agreed with his remarks about Syria and later in my remarks I will concentrate on what is happening there today. As he spoke, I reflected that I first met him in 1980 when he was our distinguished ambassador in Syria. With the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I arrived in Damascus on the very day when the war broke out between Iran and Iraq—a war that claimed some million lives. Perhaps in the context of what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has just said to the House, we should remember that.

During that visit, we met with Hafez al-Assad, Yasser Arafat, King Hussein and Anwar Sadat. In our subsequent report, we advocated a two-state approach as the only one likely to achieve sustainable peace between Israel and its neighbours. Our visit was three months after the Muslim Brotherhood had made an assassination attempt on Hafez al-Assad, and his response was then to align Syria with Iran. King Hussein declared Jordan’s support for Iraq. One week after we met Assad, he was in Moscow signing a mutual friendship treaty. Depressingly, as my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup indicated, the lines in today’s conflict are not newly drawn.

In 1980, I wrote about the repressive nature of the region’s regimes—repressive then and repressive now. Iran’s human rights record remains appalling. Saudi Arabia, referred to in this debate as our strategic ally in the region, also commits egregious violations of human rights and remains one of the deadliest exporters of global terror. Back in 1980, Syria was expelling journalists and massacring dissidents. Surely the failure to see reform, change and sustainable solutions has had these disastrous consequences, nowhere more so than in Syria.

The failure to find solutions now includes 130,000 dead with millions more driven from their homes. Nine million are said to be displaced and 3 million have fled to neighbouring countries. One hundred and fifty thousand families are deprived of their father, 2 million dwellings are destroyed, 2 million families are without shelter and 2 million students without schools. The economy is in ruins, the currency is devalued by 300% and there is growing violence, anguish, division and bitterness every day.

Sarin gas has been used against civilians in the suburbs of Damascus. Barrel bombs have rained down on Aleppo. Citizens have been under siege in Homs and elsewhere, being starved to death. Just over a week ago the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, pointed to what he called “the unspeakable suffering” of the country’s children, with 10,000 children now dead in Syria. The United Nations report published last week details arbitrary detention, ill treatment, torture and horrific abuses of children by both sides including beatings with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons, sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape, mock executions, cigarette burns, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. The report says that the opposition forces too have increasingly “engaged in such acts.”

The “Afghanisation” of Syria, with vast tracts falling under the control of dangerous jihadist groups, would hardly represent progress. We need to hear much more from the Government, and with much more clarity, of assessments of each of these various factions which are largely at war with one another. Describing them as the opposition conjures up images of a coherent and united group akin to opposition groups in parliamentary democracies. We should be very wary of using such descriptions. Take ISIS. It is said that al-Qaeda has cut its links to one of its most deadly affiliates, ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. There are also unverified reports, as we have heard, of a possible military confrontation between Hezbollah and ISIS. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what assessment she has made of the continuing use of ISIS suicide bombers, the territory it controls in north-eastern Iraq and its use of radicalised recruits, especially from the United Kingdom? I refer to recruits such as Anil Khalil Raoufi, a British Afghan who was studying engineering at the University of Liverpool and was recently killed in fighting between rebel groups. It is not just United Kingdom students—this week I sent the Minister a report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict which talks about the radicalisation of young Indonesian men who have gone to Syria via Turkey. Their director Sidney Jones says:

“Jihadi humanitarian assistance teams now appear to be facilitating the entry of fighters as well”.

It is not just that their presence in Syria fuels fundamentalism—it is that they are being radicalised in the process, posing dangers to the countries to which they return. The problem is exacerbated by the flow of arms into Syria.

In appealing to hatred, many jihadists cite a seventh-century directive which requires Christians to convert to Islam and pay tribute to Muslim rulers or leave. It is being increasingly enforced by extreme Islamist groups, so there is a religious dimension to this conflict. Here perhaps I would disagree on the margin with the remarks made by the right reverend Prelate.

What of the 60,000 fighters of the Islamic Front? Do the Government believe that the Front is capable of producing a secular or plural Syria in which minorities such as those to which I have just referred are respected? Do they have the capacity to be part of a transitional body capable of restoring trust, an almost impossible task in the aftermath of such horror? It was the late King Hussein who offered the wise advice to pray for God’s protection against,

“those who believe that they are the sole possessors of truth.”

These sole possessors of truth represent the biggest stumbling block in finding a peaceful way forward out of this confessional morass and they also represent the biggest danger to Alawites, Druze and Christians, and the rights of women.

Almost 1,500 years ago a wandering monk called John Moschos described the eastern Mediterranean as a flowering meadow of Christianity. That meadow is today a battlefield. Before the war the Christians of Syria accounted for 4.5% of the population. What will it be after the war? Forty-seven churches have been closed; two priests and a nun have been murdered; two bishops, three priests and 12 nuns have been abducted. I have raised these cases with the Minister and gave her notice that I would raise them again today. A new video of the nuns has just appeared with their traditional cross removed from their habit. Do we have any news of their whereabouts and when they may be released by their jihadist captors? What news also, about the Jesuit, Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, kidnapped in July 2013 after entering rebel-held territory? Opposition sources from Raqqah said that Paolo Dall’Oglio had been executed by extremist groups. Do we have any news about that?

I have been looking at first-hand accounts which Aid to the Church in Need has received from Syrian Christians. Typical is this note from Basman Kassouha, a refugee now in the Bekaa Valley area of Lebanon. He says that the militias,

“stormed my house, giving me one hour to evacuate or else they will kill me ... I’m heartbroken. I’ve lost everything”.

The Maronite Bishop Elias Sleman of Laodicea says Christians have been specifically targeted in a number of places. I shall quote him because I hope, as we collect evidence of these sorts of events, none of this will ever be lost to history. He says:

“There are many events that show that Christians are targeted, such as those of Maaloula, Sadad, Hafar, Deir Atiyeh, Carah, Nabk, Kseir, Rablé, Dmaineh, Michtayeh, Hassaniyeh, Knaïeh, and some villages of the Valley of Christians, Yabroud, Aafrd, the Jazirah region such as Hassaké, Ras El-Ain Kamechleh, and many other areas. Christians are increasingly targeted in horrible and unspeakable massacres”.

The mostly Christian town of Saidnaya has experienced repeated attacks by extremists. The fourth attack on the city occurred on 19 January. The ancient site of the Convent of Our Lady on Mount Qalamoun has been frequently targeted by mortars. In Homs, a Dutch priest, Father Van der Lugt, trapped in the old city, described how residents cut off for more than a year developed chronic mental health problems following the breakdown of social order. He says, “Our city has become a lawless jungle”. I remind the noble Baroness of the situation in Sadad, where there was a terrible massacre that some have described as potential genocide. What news of the situation there?

While the quest for peace continues, perhaps the Minister will share with us what we are doing to provide direct help to these beleaguered minorities, what we are doing to stop the flow of arms into Syria, what progress has been made on the removal of the 700 tonnes of priority 1 chemicals, and what happens—as the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, asked—if the deadline for removal of chemical weapons is passed. Even an agreement suspending the flow of arms and foreign militant activists would be a success, because the ceasing of fighting is the precondition for all forms of reconciliation.

Let me conclude by pressing for a response to the question I raised on Monday with the Minister’s noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who is sitting on the Front Bench. I asked whether we are collecting meticulous information of atrocities, and whether in the Security Council we will be referring these matters for prosecution by the International Criminal Court. If the danger of any other country raising a veto against us were to be used as a reason for not doing that, it would bring great dishonour on this country.

India: 1984 Operation in Sri Harmandir Sahib

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I hear clearly what my noble friend says. I had the privilege of being the first Minister in this Government to visit Sri Harmandir Sahib and also Jallianwala Bagh, where the tragedy of 1919 is still of significance, certainly for someone like me with origins in those lands. Those visits were incredibly poignant and emotional moments.

However, I take us back to the subject of discussion here. The reason for what the Prime Minister said and did in relation to Jallianwala Bagh was, of course, that there was a terrible, tragic massacre in which the United Kingdom was completely involved. We are talking now about a situation which involved Indian forces. The question that I had to address at the Dispatch Box was the nature of the UK’s involvement. I hope that, through the Statement and the documentation that has been published, I have made clear the UK’s involvement. Apologies go with responsibility but in this particular case the responsibility does not lie with the British Government. I completely understand the sentiment in the British Sikh community, and indeed in the wider community, but I do not feel that, so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, this is the kind of case that could be compared to Jallianwala Bagh.

On the noble Lord’s wider point about engagement with the British Sikh community, I enjoy a good relationship with that community as a Minister both in the Foreign Office and in the Department for Communities and Local Government. We meet regularly, both through Sikh communities coming to the department and through visits. Only a few months ago I was at the Nishkam Centre in Birmingham. We place huge value on our relationship with the Sikh community. We also note the huge contribution that Sikh communities make in the economic and professional fields and also in volunteering, something that I hold very dear and is so apparent when visiting places like the Nishkam Centre and other temples.

The Minister with responsibility for India, my right honourable friend Hugo Swire, is meeting the Sikh community as we speak, I think. The noble Lord, Lord Singh, is probably not in his seat because he is at that meeting. I was hoping that this Statement would be taken at 5 pm so that I could also be present at that meeting, as I intended. However, I will certainly follow it up with a further meeting with the community.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Indeed, my Lords, my noble friend Lord Singh has asked me to express his regrets to the Minister and to the House that he cannot be in his place, given that he has followed this issue with assiduousness and determination over a very long period, but he is at the meeting to which the Minister has just alluded.

The Minister will have seen the statement made by Bhai Amrik Singh, the chairman of the Sikh Federation, that he was “hugely disappointed” with the inquiry’s “narrow terms” and that his meeting with the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood had failed to assuage his concerns. Given that the Minister has done so much to build good relationships with the Sikh community, will she assure the House that she is willing to meet Mr Singh to discuss whether there are outstanding issues that could still be examined? Will she also comment briefly on the remarks she made about Britain’s commercial interests when she repeated the Foreign Secretary’s Statement earlier and said they had played no part at all in any of these events? Would she be willing to publish a list of any arms deals that were made during the period prior to and immediately after these events in 1984?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I think Amrik Singh is part of the delegation of individual organisations and individuals who are meeting with Minister Swire, but if that is not the case and he is not part of that meeting, I will certainly see whether appropriate contact could be made. As I said, I will be making contact myself with members of the Sikh community in the coming weeks and months. There is a wide range of opinion. I had the opportunity to discuss the matter at some length with the noble Lord, Lord Singh, and my honourable friend Paul Uppal, who is the only Member of Parliament of Sikh origin in the House of Commons. Quite a breadth of opinion has come back from the Sikh community about how far the British Government are expected to go to satisfy certain elements of that community. I completely take on board how raw this issue is—and how raw Operation Blue Star is—and to what extent certain elements of the community wish there to be a truth and reconciliation process. However, going back to what I said at the beginning, that is a separate issue to the one that we are dealing with, which is what the UK’s involvement was.

I assure the noble Lord that the advice that was given was not linked in any way to commercial interests or to a particular defence contract or negotiation. That is certainly what the documentation shows. I am not sure how much further it would take the matter to start publishing any discussions that were happening in relation to any sort of commercial activity with the state over whatever period of time. I know from my own dealings with countries that we are engaged with through UKTI that these matters can sometimes take months and sometimes years. How far would that net have to be cast? I would like to be assured, and to reassure the House, on whether there was, in this particular case, a commercial connection to the decision. I can assure noble Lords that there was not.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

Of course, the noble Lord will be aware that part of the conditions of the peace, security and co-operation framework, signed by 11 countries including the DRC and Rwanda and other countries in the region as well as the African Union and the UN, was about these militia groups laying down their arms. The M23 laying down arms at the back-end of last year is a hopeful step, but we continue to press countries and individual groups, including those linked to the FDLR, to move towards disarmament and reintegration.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are now some 2.9 million people displaced in the DRC, 60% of them in the North Kivu and South Kivu areas, where the M23 was most active? Half of those displaced people are children. Does the Minister therefore view with consternation the report from the United Nations group of experts that the M23 is continuing to recruit fighters in Rwanda and that sanctioned M23 leaders are moving freely in Uganda? Has she seen Navi Pillay’s report accusing both countries of hosting some of the most serious perpetrators of human rights violations in the DRC? When did we last raise this with the High Commissioners of Uganda and Rwanda?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord will take some comfort from the fact that the Minister for Africa, my honourable friend Mr Simmonds, will be landing in the DRC in about two hours. Part of his role is to look at these particular camps. The noble Lord will be aware that DDR—disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, which is effectively bringing these fighters back into the mainstream—has happened in the DRC, predominately in relation to foreign fighters, but there is not a particular programme, or a detailed enough programme, in relation to Congolese fighters who have laid down their arms. These are matters upon which my honourable friend is hoping to make progress over the next two days. I can issue a statement or put a letter in the House to give an update.

Central African Republic

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend is right; there is an absolutely appalling situation on the ground. The violence has been seen by many of us on our TV screens as the news reports have been coming out. We currently have about 3,500 troops deployed there as part of the African Union force and I understand that a total of about 6,000 will be deployed—there are about 1,600 French troops deployed. We have responded to requests from the French for three airlifts, which took place in December. We will of course respond to any further requests for support. My noble friend may be aware that there is a European Foreign Affairs Council meeting on Monday, and further options may well be discussed there.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister reflect on the role that outside insurgents are playing in the Central African Republic? Can she tell us what the Security Council is doing to ensure that the western borders of the republic are secured, so that organisations such as Boko Haram are not able to influence events inside the CAR, where jihadists are already present?

[Baroness Warsi]

The information that I have from my brief—although I stand to be corrected by the noble Lord, who is greatly experienced in the area—is that the situation has at this stage been contained within the borders of the Central African Republic. There are some concerns about external elements and a potential religious element to this developing, and we are of course keeping an eye on that.

EU: Free Trade Agreements

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

My noble friend is correct that EU agreements, including for instance the one with Canada, have standard clauses on human rights. I am not aware that any of these clauses have been invoked, although it is feasible to suspend all or part of the agreement if human rights have got worse in a particular country. I think that the engagement in free trade and the free movement of people, services and goods, is something that should help human rights. I certainly think that ensuring that human rights are on the agenda when we try to negotiate is a major help.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, without doubting the importance of free trade agreements to lifting an estimated 800 million people in the world out of starvation, despair or poverty, will the noble Lord nevertheless take into account the exploitation of children in a country like India, for instance, or exploited labour elsewhere in the world? Will he tell the House what balance is struck in determining free trade agreements in relation to protecting the rights of those who are likely to be exploited?

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

The challenge of child labour in certain countries can happen irrespective of free trade, but I think that free trade will actually help through the exposure and openness of the economies, which is a major help to improving the conditions of workers in individual countries. That is something we will continue to push for. As I said earlier, we also put human rights clauses in the various agreements and the UN has certain statements on human rights, which we also look to comply with. It is an important subject, but it is not peculiar to free trade agreements.

South Sudan

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The Foreign Secretary has issued a number of statements in which he has called for the violence to stop. As the noble Lord is aware, the United Nations Security Council resolution, which I think was passed on Christmas Eve, was specifically intended to ensure that further troops were put on the ground quickly to try to stop the situation deteriorating. They also strengthened the existing UN mission in South Sudan to support its humanitarian work so that the human rights abuses that were occurring were properly documented to ensure that responsibility follows these acts. The negotiations between the representatives of the two parties are ongoing. We have done a huge amount of work in the background but also in leading these negotiations. The Foreign Office’s political director, Simon Gass, was there throughout the Christmas period, working with the US and his other counterparts. If it is felt that a further UN Security Council resolution is required over and above the statement issued on 30 December, I will certainly take the noble Lord’s views back.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in her written reply to me on 3 January, the Minister said that the unanimous adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2132 authorised a significant increase in the number of troops in the UNMISS force in South Sudan. Can she tell us what the numbers actually are and whether she believes that they will be up to the task of dealing with the situation, which, as we have heard, has led to a displacement of 200,000 people? Does she not also agree that there is a real danger that these events in South Sudan will distract the world from looking at what is happing just over the border in Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Darfur, where the campaign of aerial bombardment by Khartoum goes on as we meet?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord, as always, makes an informed and important point. In relation to the UN Security Council resolution, a further five battalions were committed, which amounts to about 5,500 troops. Three police units were specifically granted, which amounts to about 480 personnel—those are the increased numbers at this stage. The noble Lord makes an important point about regional challenges, but one of the positive features of this current tragedy is how, for example, Ethiopia, Uganda and even Sudan have acted in a much more responsible way. There has certainly been a suggestion that there could be some joint working between Sudan and South Sudan, maybe in relation to keeping the oil flows going.

North Korea

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact of events in North Korea on security and human rights.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, North Korea continues to have one of the worst human rights records in the world. The recent execution of Chang Song-thaek provides further evidence of its disregard for even the most basic human rights. We are closely monitoring the situation, and we are consulting allies in order to understand the implications of recent events.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that even before last week’s execution of Chang Song-thaek, the Times reported that there had been 80 public executions in seven cities on one day alone, the victims tied to stakes, hooded and killed by machine-gun fire? The United Nations estimates that there are some 300,000 people in the gulag network in North Korea—a network which, according to Amnesty International, is being expanded. Will the Minister read the report An Unmet Need, launched this morning at Westminster, which calls for the extension of BBC World Service broadcasts to North Korea as a way of breaking the information blockade, of exercising soft power—as we have done so successfully in places such as Burma—of promoting democratic values and of challenging a regime that relies on Stalinist purges, show trials, the obliteration of opposition and a cruel reign of terror?

[Baroness Warsi]

I will of course read that report, and will ensure that it is brought to the attention of the Minister with responsibility for North Korea. I understand the noble Lord’s position in relation to the BBC; indeed, he has asked questions on this subject in the past. I also understand that the BBC has recently conducted a feasibility study of, for example, radio broadcasting in North Korea, but has concluded that because of the North Korean Government’s ability to jam broadcasts, the reach that would result from such broadcasting would not provide sufficient value for money. The noble Lord will know that the BBC has full editorial, operational and managerial independence on such issues, and we understand that it is not currently persuaded that a Korean language service would be an effective use of its funds. However, I will look at the report.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

Of course, at the time that Navi Pillay visited the United Kingdom, the CHOGM had yet to happen. It was one of the issues that was discussed with the Foreign Secretary. We are keen to see some incredibly robust language and text at the Human Rights Council in March 2014.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, given that the visit of Navi Pillay took place just a few days after the United Nations Commission of Inquiry was here at Westminster taking evidence about the egregious violations of human rights in North Korea, and given the events of last week with the execution of Chang Song-thaek and the Amnesty International report which shows the expansion of political prison camps as part of the gulag system that incarcerates more than 300,000 people, can the Minister say whether Navi Pillay spoke to Ministers about the situation in North Korea and whether this was one of the issues we had on the agenda for that meeting?

[Baroness Warsi]

She did discuss that matter with the Foreign Secretary and it was one of the issues on the agenda. The noble Lord may be aware that an Urgent Question has now been granted for Wednesday specifically on North Korea. I look to the Lord Speaker to confirm that but, if that is the case, I can, I hope, answer that question in much more detail on Wednesday.