Hezbollah: Threat to the United Kingdom

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Godson, for his inspiration in having this debate and for his searching speech. We look forward to the Minister’s answers.

I would like to approach this issue in a slightly different way. In my view, one of the answers to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Godson, is by increasing the efforts that our country makes in diplomacy in Lebanon and the region. If Lebanon could emerge from its current political stasis and from the tragic situation it finds itself in militarily, then Hezbollah would matter but little in that country. It would be diminished by Lebanon becoming once again part of the comity of nations.

As it happens, I have a very close friend, Dr El Zein, who is a distinguished academic working in Beirut. He is a family man who is connected with many politicians there; he is not a politician himself. He and I have been speaking every day for the last few weeks, and he has been sending me his daily diary which includes his family moving to their little flat in the mountains but with another 20 people there with them. It is part of what has been happening in Lebanon.

I ask our Government to recast their approach to Lebanese politics and to resist merely following in the slipstream of the United States, which since 2006 has been responsible for what has become inept diplomacy and the increase of the power of Hezbollah. The Lebanese people are now hugely angry with Iran, the proxy warrior that supplies the weapons and experiences almost none of the grief.

Our Government should engage with other European Governments, as well as with the United States, and with all parliamentarians in Beirut, including Hezbollah. I know that our Government are very reluctant to talk to even Hezbollah members of parliament there, but that is an unrealistic approach. They do not like what is happening in their country at the moment either.

Why do we not help them towards, for example, the election of a new President, through the parliament system of electing a President? They have been without a President for two years. There are candidates who could become President of Lebanon who would be recognised throughout the world for what they have done as economists, bankers and businesspeople, and in other ways. Lebanon will not have its place in the world without a new President. This would also increase the respect in which our country and our Foreign Office are held. Iran has betrayed Lebanon. We can help the Lebanese back into a position of welcome among nations.

Violent Disorder

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his response and the questions he has brought forward today. I am particularly pleased, as I mentioned, with the support that was given at the time of the incidents and the discussions we have had with colleagues around the response at a local level from members of the Church of England. I also welcome the condemnation he echoed of violent acts. He will know that the issues of community cohesion he mentioned are difficult issues to deal with, but ones that it is essential that this House and the Government grasp and take forward. I hope he will welcome that the Deputy Prime Minister is going to be leading on community cohesion. We will be looking at what we can do to bring groups together to look at how we bring together all the issues to which both Front Benches have referred.

While I cannot give assurances today on timescales or terms of reference, these will be issues that this House and the House of Commons return to regularly, because we have to tackle the underlying causes of individuals feeling alienated from society. There is no excuse for that behaviour—it is criminal behaviour and will be dealt with as criminal behaviour—but we still have to understand the reasons why people have fallen into that criminal behaviour, just as we would on any other aspect of criminal behaviour. I give the right reverend Prelate the assurance that that will be undertaken by the Deputy Prime Minister and others in the coming months.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, in welcoming everything that has been said so far in this debate, and welcoming my old friend to this House and to the Front Bench, I ask him whether he agrees that the actions of online entities such as Channel3Now in Pakistan, allowing online advertising sites to make money by purveying violent, demonstrably deliberate untruths about the country we live in, is wholly unacceptable. I suggest that at least the possibility of further regulation should be used to compel internet entities to see it as their duty to refute the broadcasting of such content.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It is nice to see the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, again. We have seen each other in a number of guises over the years, and I am as surprised as he is to find myself here today responding to these issues. He raises an extremely important and valid point. Much of the content that fired the organisation of some of the events we saw, not just in Southport but across the whole United Kingdom, began its life in an internet or social media post that encouraged poor behaviour, not just in the UK but, as the noble Lord said, outside the United Kingdom.

The Online Safety Act was passed by both Houses in the last Parliament and was the child of the previous Government. The level of implementation of some of the measures in that Act needs to be looked at. My right honourable friend Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for DSIT, has met with social media providers to look at the internet and what role it played, and we will review the policy over time. This is an organically growing issue, but the points the noble Lord mentioned are extremely valid, are registered by this Government and are ones that this Government will look at and take forward in due course.