Commonwealth

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, if ever the Commonwealth needed a champion, the noble Lord, Lord Luce, would be exemplary as such a person. He constantly holds the flag high.

We live in a great paradox. The processes and institutions of globalisation have made individual people feel less and less significant, more and more marginalised and, indeed, alienated. There is a tremendous need to build up a sense of confidence among people. In the face of this reality I have described, there is a tendency to take resort in nationalism and ethnic groupings. We should not condemn that because if it enables people to find a place in which to feel personal significance it can be a good thing. However, the paradox is that we have never lived in an age in which interdependence globally was more real. This is true in economic terms, in migration terms, in climate change terms and the consequences of the movement of peoples, in security terms—it is true in almost any dimension you may wish to consider. In fact, there are very few major problems facing our children that can be solved in any way other than by effective international co-operation at the global level.

It is a mistake to see the Commonwealth as a rival or a potential alternative to existing institutions. That does no one any good whatever. Regional groupings such as Europe are crucially important, as are regional groupings in other parts of the world. There are the ad hoc groupings on issues such as defence and so on, and NATO has been mentioned already in this debate. However, the Commonwealth can bring a free association of diverse nations and people who have decided, for one reason or another, that they want to belong to each other in a closer relationship. That can be tremendously important in the deliberations of these other institutions. It is not a substitute for them—it cannot be a substitute for them—but it can be a way in which you can strengthen a spirit of co-operation and mutual understanding.

That is why the work with youth is so important; that is why the work that goes on in the exchanges of communities, professionals and different elements of public services and so on is very important. The building of this sense of mutuality and understanding can be the spirit surrounding the formal negotiations that go on in the other crucial institutions I have mentioned.

Of course, if we want to make that contribution as a Commonwealth club, if I may use the phrase, we should try from time to time, as long as we do not become over-introspective, to ask ourselves what we feel as a group are the things that matter. We attempted that in the Harare declaration in 1991 and it proved a sad experience. I could not have put it better myself, if I am allowed to be so arrogant, than Hugo Swire, the Minister of State, writing in the Parliamentarian recently, who said:

“We have been all too aware that if the Commonwealth cannot protect democracy and stand up for human rights, then it is losing credibility and becoming untenable”.

That is a sobering but very accurate observation.

We have now had a chance to revamp all that with the charter, which again emphasises the principles and values that we are trying to work on together. Human rights, as has been mentioned, are crucial, but they are not something on which one nation should lecture another. They are a struggle for us all. There is not a single member of the Commonwealth or, I would dare to say, a single member of the international community who does not have to face issues of human rights. We are in a mutual struggle to enhance the human condition and build the stability and confidence that comes when human rights are being fulfilled. We all know that the absence of human rights leads to insecurity, danger and extremism. The Commonwealth, as a resource of human co-operation within the crucial but essentially more formal international institutions, has a big role to play. I do not believe that we have begun to realise that potential.

European Court of Human Rights: Khodorkovsky Case

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, on raising this important matter in this debate. We should put on record our appreciation of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Rights for the work that it does on this issue and the material results of its research, which are made available to us.

There are 13,600 people serving prison terms in Russia for what are described as economic crimes. The routine criminalisation of business disputes is all too symptomatic of the weak rule of law in Russia. Entrepreneurs are too often jailed on trumped-up charges by manipulative investigators and judges. Only 1% of cases in Russian courts result in acquittal. Indeed, the workings of a court in Russia have been described as “telephone justice”, with external pressure all too evidently exerted on judges to produce a particular verdict.

The noble Lord has spoken well about the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The oligarch has spent a decade in prison after two consecutive trials—the second said to be more legally questionable than the first—but just as he is due to be released next year there are sinister hints that a third case could be on the way. The heaviest hint came in the form of the release of a documentary from the once independent but now wholly tainted television channel NTV, alleging that the oligarch was behind the murder of the mayor of Nefteyugansk in 1998. Putin himself has alleged several times that Khodorkovsky has blood on his hands.

He is not alone, a point that the noble Lord made forcefully. As he reminded us, there was the case of Sergei Magnitsky and his posthumous conviction for tax fraud, having died in prison after terrible experiences at the hands of the authorities. William Browder was also convicted of tax fraud in absentia and sentenced to nine years. He plans to appeal. The Yaroslavl mayor, Yevgeny Urlashov, was also recently arrested in the middle of the night. The former member of the United Russia party was elected last year as the city’s mayor. In local elections this autumn, he was preparing to support candidates from a new party started by billionaire Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov. He has been accused of taking bribes and a judge has ordered him behind bars until 2 September.

We have all been heartened to hear of the release, pending appeal, of Alexei Navalny after intervention by Putin. However, there is a good deal of room for suspicion that this may all be cat and mouse—that, in fact, he will stand in elections that will be fixed, he will be defeated and he will then be more severely treated in court than before. The objectives of the President will have been achieved.

All this is bad enough, but we also have to look at it in the context of other things that are happening in Russia at the same time. There is, of course, the terrible crackdown on NGOs, which are standing up for human rights and humanitarian issues. As of the end of June, at least 62 groups have received warnings or orders to register as foreign agents or have been taken to court by the authorities. Of seven groups already taken to court, five have lost administrative cases and have been ordered to pay fines and register. At least one has been closed. Another 15 organisations that received direct notices of violation from the prosecutor’s office may face administrative charges if they fail to register as foreign agents. Authorities have warned at least 38 groups to register as foreign agents if they receive foreign funding and plan to carry out what are described as political activities, which would be seen in this country as very legitimate lobbying, on the issues that concern them.

The treason law expands the legal definition of treason in ways that leaves broad room for officials to arbitrarily interpret and selectively apply it against individuals engaged in routine discussions with foreign counterparts or presenting human rights reports to international conferences. Russia’s public assembly law, adopted in 2012, dramatically increased the maximum penalty for violating rules regulating protests and introduced new restrictions on public protests. Russia’s constitutional court has ruled that several of the law’s provisions were unconstitutional and the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has found that the amendments represent a step backward for the protection of freedom of assembly—and indeed urges Russia to repeal or revise key provisions. Libel, decriminalised at the end of the Medvedev presidency, has been recriminalised.

Some argue that these sad and disturbing trends in the administration of justice started with Putin’s re-election as president in 2012, in response to the protest movements in 2011. Personally, I do not accept this. It may have accelerated them, but there was far too much indefensible myopia in the West to what has been going on since the end of the 1990s. I was for some years rapporteur to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the conflict in Chechnya, with its inevitable consequences for Dagestan and Ingushetia. All I can say is that the numerous disappearances, the torture, the intimidation of witnesses, the home burnings, the indiscriminate bombardments and the extra judicial killings—not least of brave journalists and human rights activists such as Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, who tried to speak the truth—were cruel and terrible and provided ample evidence of the ruthless distortion of so-called justice.

Attempts to pin down the Russians became frustrating in the extreme. We would repeatedly be told that an investigation would be initiated but seldom, if ever, did we hear of the completion of such an investigation, with those responsible brought to justice. There have been 200 European Court judgments against Russia with reference to the North Caucasus, the majority involving multiple violations of the European convention. The lamentable inadequacy of official investigations in too many of these cases has been on a scale that indicates a systemic and continuing failure. Recently, Putin has certainly been shoring up his political base by mobilising reactionaries, nationalists and xenophobes. He puts his public money where his purpose lies; the salaries of the riot police have been doubled.

In conclusion, to the cynics who say, “But what on earth can be done about all this?”, lots of things can be done. One is to make sure that far more frequently, far more vigorously and in many more cases what is happening is brought to public attention and a stand is made. The Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe must stop pussy-footing around and pursue Russia relentlessly in carrying out what has been ruled necessary by the European Court. It raises these issues, but it does not pursue them as vigorously as it should.

Syria and the Middle East

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, it is always good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in our debates. He brings a real sense of deep humanitarian commitment, of learning and of analysis informed by human reality. Those are great assets in our deliberations, for which all sides of the House should be grateful.

At the end of last week, I was in Israel and Jordan, where I had a wide range of very interesting conversations. As I listened to the noble Baroness introducing the debate, I thought that what she was saying related very well to the preoccupations in those conversations. However, what was telling during the few days that I was in that part of the world was the almost total preoccupation with Egypt. I think that this House must take what is happening in Egypt extremely seriously. If what is happening there deteriorates and things spiral still further out of control, it is not impossible that that will put a different perspective on our current preoccupations, because we will be absolutely consumed with the implications of what is taking place. Clearly, the issue is highly complex and it affects the stability of the whole region.

I was challenged by the very interesting contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. I think that in future I shall refer to it as the “Ashdown analysis”. That, too, has to be taken very seriously. What is really going on and what really is the strategic situation in which we are caught up? It is worth looking at some illustrations of that: the pressure on Turkey and how that interplays with domestic politics within Turkey; the involvement, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, referred, of Iran, and the game that Iran is probably playing; the destabilisation, again, of Lebanon—just in the past 10 days there have been serious casualties in northern Lebanon, with the possibility of another collapse of order in Lebanon—and tension on the border with Israel.

A new factor is the expansionist ambitions of Hamas, which has been thwarted in its attempts to become part of the Middle East peace process and to have a presence in the deliberations on the future of that particular Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In my view, that has strengthened the militant elements within Hamas, which are leading it into dangerous expansionist experiments.

Only a few weeks ago there were great celebrations in the Foreign Office at the conclusion of the arms trade treaty. This was seen as a triumph of bipartisan, consistent work by a lot of officials and Ministers, who had brought about a satisfactory solution. However, I found it quite extraordinary that virtually at the same time the conversation was beginning to develop about the possibility of sending arms to the rebels in Syria. I just could not reconcile such a proposal with all the satisfaction that had been taken in concluding the arms trade treaty. Obviously, we all know that weapons are very dangerous, and central to that treaty is that weapons in the wrong hands are very dangerous indeed. Therefore, their use is a consideration that must always be borne in mind in relation to the export of arms. It is important to ask in whose hands the arms will finally end up, how they will be applied and what the objectives are of the people into whose hands they may ultimately land. Also central to the arms trade treaty is a preoccupation with human rights. How could we talk about exporting arms to people who—although obviously not on the scale of the Syrian Government—are too involved in the crude abuse of human rights? I have never heard those two contrary elements of our situation reconciled to my satisfaction, and I wonder whether we can hear more about that before the debate ends.

I want to say a word or two about humanitarian assistance. The first point to make is that humanitarian agencies in this country are desperate to get access to all parts of Syria and are very anxious that the Government should pursue this with all possible vigour, not least in the Security Council in trying to bring the Russians on board, at least on this. Everyone—rebels and government—should be pressurising all parties to the conflict to make access by humanitarian agencies a possibility. Of course, there is a role for the UN Security Council in that context. Great credit should be given to the British Government for what they have done and the lead they have given, but there is still a tremendous amount to be done in getting the world to face its responsibility of fulfilling the pledges that it has given. It is cruelly cynical to be at conferences at which great amounts of assistance are pledged but do not materialise. The current UN appeal is to last for only for six months, and in June only 28% of the $5.2 billion needed had been subscribed.

In Syria, 6.8 million men, women and children are in desperate need of assistance. Since the conflict erupted, more than 1.5 million people have fled to neighbouring countries. One has only to think of Jordan, where I was last week. There is a huge burden on Jordan. In one camp alone, the Zaatari refugee camp, there are 150,000 newly arrived Syrians. That is on top of the 550,000 refugees from Syria in Jordan as a whole and the 600,000 Syrians who were already living in Jordan. If one needed an illustration of the destabilisation within the Ashdown analysis, as part of the Ashdown scenario being played out, we should think of that.

We like to feel that whatever our profound reservations about human rights in Jordan, it is a relatively stable country. But for how long will Jordan remain stable? Some have estimated that within a very short number of years, 25% of the population of Jordan will be refugees. How does one sustain stability and security in that context? Perhaps I may add that it also puts our own preoccupations about the movement of people, immigration and refugees in a very different light when one sees what the Jordanian people are absorbing and carrying, the burden on them and the effect on their economy and well-being.

All this makes a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue more urgent than ever, and not less. I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bates, that lasting, enduring solutions have to belong to the people in whose name they are being reached. They cannot be imposed on the people because they would not last. A settlement has to be rooted in a conviction across a wide cross-section of the population that it is something that they want and believe in. Last week, I had conversations with the Speaker of the Knesset, Mr Edelstein, and others. I also had a very good conversation with President Abbas of the Palestinians.

I do not belong to the ranks of those who despair of any movement in the situation. Tantalisingly, there is some chance of progress but if there is to be progress one thing is absolutely clear. We have to increase the number of Palestinians and Israelis being exposed to each other not as a problem, as analysis or in a stigmatised sort of way, but as people who are encountering each other, who are hearing each other’s perspectives and sharing each other’s agonies and professionalism. At a very interesting conference in which noble Lords were involved, there were hydrologists from both communities. They were fascinated by the work that they talked about together. That is essential because only in that way will we create the space around the negotiators for them to become more flexible and imaginative. I was very glad to hear that among the Knesset and the Palestinian leadership there was an understanding that this was a useful thing to do. I was there as chairman of the IPU’s Middle East committee and I hope that this is a matter on which the IPU may be able to help.

Iran: Election

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

It would be wrong for me to speculate as to what offer may be made by the Iranians and how the US would respond in relation to that. However, I can assure the noble Lord that the E3+3 negotiations have been held in an open and frank manner. A number of matters are on the table. I am not sure what the current conditions are in relation to those negotiations so I cannot answer his question directly in relation to whether any further conditions will be set before further discussions take place. However, I welcome, with the noble Lord, that over 70% of the Iranian public took part in these elections, that Dr Rouhani was elected with over 50% of the vote, and that he described his win as a victory over extremism and unethical behaviour. This is a moment when Iran could choose an alternative course.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that while it would be naive to suppose that the issues still outstanding are not grave and serious, it would be very unfortunate if, in these early days of the new political reality in Iran, we were to give the impression that we were from the outset still negative? Is it not very important to be able to demonstrate a willingness to respond and to give credibility to the new leadership? Does she also agree that if he is trying to change gear on the crucial nuclear issue it makes it all the more important that the existing nuclear powers take seriously—transparently and demonstrably seriously—their commitment within the non-proliferation treaty to reduce their own stocks and nuclear capabilities?

[Baroness Warsi]

I take the point made by the noble Lord. Of course we have to be positive about what could potentially flow from these election results. However, we must also remember that more than 600 candidates were disqualified during this process, of which 30 were women. We have to see this election in the context of the background against which it was held. Of course, it is right for us to respond positively to any further movements by the Iranians. That is why I said that this is a moment when Iran can choose an alternative course of action. However, there are still serious negotiations and questions on the table, and it is important for Iran seriously to engage with those E3+3 negotiations.

EU: UK Isolation

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, serves us well and may he long continue to do so.

The first reality for all of us in Britain is our total interdependence with the world as a whole. We fail the electorate, we fail our children and we lamentably fail our grandchildren unless we take every opportunity to bring that home. Since we last debated this issue, the realities of interdependence have become more underlined than ever. The economic crisis continues, the euro crisis—with all its implications for us as well as for everybody else—is still there, and of course this is complicated by the emergence of south Asia and China as increasingly significant economic realities.

Global security is challenging. There is Syria, the Arab spring with all its implications, the Korean peninsula and more besides; there is climate change, which is not unrelated to the issues of migration, which are immense; and then, of course, there are crime and terrorism. One of the things that we all have to face is that significant crime and significant terrorism are, by definition, international in character. None of these issues can be satisfactorily resolved for the British people by Britain on her own. They all require constant, growing and effective co-operation.

Sub-Committees E and F will produce their report this week. I declare an interest as a member of Sub-Committee F but I commend the report to all members and take this opportunity to thank the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Bowness, for their outstanding leadership in chairing those two committees. I also commend the evidence because there has been a real attempt to keep the report of those committees evidence-based. One should read that evidence. All the people involved in the front line in fighting international terrorism and crime are saying that it would be madness at this stage to pull out from the closest possible co-operation which is developing so well within Europe.

I conclude by simply making this point. In the aftermath of the Second World War, in those very difficult situations our leaders across the political divide recognised that our future lay in the future of the world, and they became central to the building of viable, relevant international institutions. This was as true of the Conservative leadership at that time as it was of the leadership of my own party. What has happened that we have lost sight of that reality? The challenges today demand that same vision. Of course, there are weaknesses and huge flaws within the European Union, but those are best tackled by a Britain that is seen to be relentlessly committed to its involvement and belonging to the international and European community, not by a Britain that neurotically and negatively constantly undermines the European cause. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, most warmly and hope that he will continue to keep us up to the mark on scrutiny on this issue.

Nuclear Disarmament

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as a trustee of Saferworld. Along with others, I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for having made this debate possible. It is always particularly telling when people with such a strong military background speak out in the way that he has spoken out today. I also want to say how moved I was by the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall. Ever since coming into this House, over 20 years ago, I have admired his contribution almost without limit. He speaks with the firm authority of a former Chief of the General Staff but he also speaks with great enlightenment. I shall never forget his speeches before we went into Afghanistan and before the Iraq war, and I wish they had been taken more seriously. The House will miss his wisdom and experience.

Disarmament and arms control are essential elements in an effective defence policy. So-called irregular, and indeed terrorist, activities underline this, and Afghanistan, Mali and Algeria are all recent examples. The easy availability of dangerous and lethal arms makes arms control all the more imperative. Light arms, vehicles, spare parts and, more sinisterly, the biological, chemical and crude nuclear possibilities are all part of this. Nuclear waste from civil industry is highly relevant. The international arms trade must be under constant scrutiny. Sadly, the prevailing culture seems still too often to be that arms exports are an important part of our export drive and should be debarred only when there is some overriding reason for doing so. Surely, the culture should be that, in our highly turbulent and unstable world, arms and ancillary equipment are highly dangerous and lethal exports which should be permitted only to the closest firm allies in whom we have total confidence or for very specific controllable reasons of international security and defence. Confidence about end-use and potential end-use is essential.

Because of the introduction of the nuclear, biological and chemical dimension of all this, I hope that noble Lords will permit me to say a word on the arms trade treaty negotiations. The final conference, after failure to agree in July 2012, will be in less than two months’ time. If that conference again fails to deliver a treaty, the issue will return to the UN General Assembly in its current session, where the assembly as a whole will take over, with the possibility of voting a treaty through. The methodology in negotiations has been to proceed by consensus. However, this must not be allowed to become a treaty at any cost. That would not be a success—quite the reverse. It must be effective and curb irresponsible transfers. In other words, it must uphold the original purpose of the ATT; it has to cover a comprehensive range of arms and ancillary equipment; and it has to include ammunition. Upholding human rights must be a key part of it all. The Government, like their predecessor, have played a dynamic lead role in emphasising all this and in taking the conference forward. It would be tragic if they were to weaken and fall at the last fence. A treaty must of course meet the challenges of Syria.

Specifically on multilateral nuclear disarmament, the need is urgent. There is growing evidence of pressure for still more proliferation. There are the issues of Iran and Israel. The non-proliferation treaty has as a cornerstone the firm commitment of existing nuclear powers to pursue nuclear disarmament themselves. Our nuclear policy must at all times be, and be seen to be, consistent with that. How do we influence constructively if we are perceived to be moving in the opposite direction? To argue that our own nuclear weapons are essential to the defence of the realm can be provocative and positively encourage others to use exactly the same argument. It has been powerfully argued that nothing would better promote nuclear disarmament than for us to announce the intention not to replace the Trident system, to abandon continuous at-sea deterrence, to mothball our submarines and to put them on the negotiating table as a challenge for all to abandon nuclear weapons. I strongly believe that the case and need for, and relevance of, a new Trident have never been established.

There are other practical steps that we can take. We can reduce patrols, thereby lengthening the life expectancy of submarines and pushing off the need for replacement. We can further reduce warheads, demonstrating that numbers can be very small but still effective. We can step up our proactive diplomacy and technical co-operation around the P5 process. It is going slowly at present. The Chinese are blamed, but more could be done to find out from them what they require in order to have confidence in the process. We could take Russian concern and apparent paranoia more seriously. This paranoia harms our own security as well as the prospects for arms control. We have to address more convincingly their concerns. We could open up Britain to inspections that mirror the US-Russian transparency in the new START process. Why do we have to be more secretive than the US and the Russians? Indeed, we could have our own bilateral arrangements with Russia. Central to the current considerations by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on all this is which systems will provide more flexibility to move further forward on disarmament and which will not.

It is essential to remember that the UK has said it believes that a nuclear abolition treaty will one day be necessary and is desirable. Surely now is the time to go beyond William Hague’s May 2010 declaratory posture; for example, by adopting a policy of no first use—that is, negative assurances—Trident is then for use only in deterring a nuclear strike. We could then recommend to the P5, alongside China, that they agree a no-first-use treaty. No first use would be an important confidence-building measure for the wider community of non-nuclear armed states. It would enhance the spirit of the NPT and be an important and concrete step along the long road to nuclear disarmament.

We could also build on the UK-Norway warhead dismantlement initiative by commissioning studies on how the UK could in practice move from being a nuclear weapons state to a non-nuclear weapons state. We could then share these studies with others in the P5 and encourage similar studies by them. The transition to being a non-nuclear weapons state would of course require extraordinary legal, political and practical measures. The international community would need high levels of evidence and confidence to be convinced not only that the UK had disarmed but that the change was genuine and absolute and that it would not reconfigure its nuclear arsenal in future.

Long ago, when I was Minister of State for the Foreign Office, I had some responsibilities in the sphere of disarmament. One of the issues that always concerned me—and I do not think that it concerns me any less now than it did then—was that, because of the complexity of the issues, there was a great temptation to get involved in an intellectualised process in which good minds, as it were, played chess with each other. I am a crude politician when it comes down to the point. The issue is: do we believe that a disarmed world would be safer or more dangerous? Do we believe that a nuclear disarmed world would be safer or more dangerous? Clearly, a nuclear disarmed world would be a much safer place in which to live. Our job is to think about how we do it, not to prevaricate and look at all the difficulties.

Bahrain

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend makes an important point. We have a strong relationship—a strong friendship—with Bahrain. It is because that friendship is so strong that we can have very honest conversations. I assure him that, from the Prime Minister through to the Foreign Secretary and the Minister responsible for Bahrain, and in the discussions that I have had, we do not lose any opportunity to raise these concerns. We get real support from the other side: there is a willingness to move these matters forward. As I said in my recent discussions with the Foreign Minister, the more that can be achieved and the more progress that can be shown in terms of these recommendations from the BICI and the UPR, the better this relationship will become.

[Lord Judd]

In the Government’s negotiations or conversations with the Government of Bahrain, do they take the opportunity not only to raise this issue in human rights terms but to point out forcefully to the Bahrain Government that to indulge in disproportionate action of this kind is to play into the hands of extremists who seek to capture the desire of countless ordinary people for progress and human rights developments within that country, and that the way to ensure security for their country is to avoid like the plague counterproductive action?

European Union: Recent Developments

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I for one was very glad that my noble friend mentioned so firmly the Nobel Peace Prize at the beginning of the debate. I know that there has been controversy about this, but as one who was beginning to reach political consciousness and going through my formative years politically at the end of the Second World War and that post-war period, I remember it all very clearly.

Our sense of history becomes rather short. The European Coal and Steel Community was the beginning of it all. The great statesmen who were involved in this were not just interested in economic arrangements; they were seeing economic relations as the means by which one builds stability and peace in Europe—the two went absolutely hand in hand from the beginning. We should not be so reticent these days as to fail to mention and reassert the interrelationship between the economics and the politics, and how the economics are there to support the reality of a stable, peaceful Europe.

The noble Lords, Lords Maclennan and Lord Taverne, got it right when they reminded us that it would be much better to put our energies into explaining to the British people, in our schools and through informal public education, the benefits of the Community rather than just always putting across a picture of how we are defending ourselves against all sorts of pernicious and sinister forces that are trying to defeat us, which is nonsense, of course. Though we may think that we understand it or begin to understand the single market, we need to explain to the people of Britain why it is so important, not least in terms of inward investment to this country and of meeting the challenges of south-east Asia, China and Brazil.

But there is much more to the Community than just this, and noble Lords have referred to it. There is the reality of the new multinational businesses and of international crime. How are we helped in coping with the power and influence of multinational business or dealing with international crime if we try to do it all on an individual-state basis? It will not work; we have to co-operate. That is why the police are so adamant that we should be very careful about pulling out of any of the relationships that they have painstakingly built to help them to do their job effectively. Of course, this applies in the sphere of terrorism as well, as it does in that of global warming, because pollution and the consequences of global warming know no national frontiers and we are foolish if we think that we can build up effective arrangements for coping with it on a national basis alone.

We ought also perhaps to put a bit more time into talking about social legislation in Europe. We ought at least to examine whether there is some interrelationship between German economic success and the social provisions that prevail in its industrial relations and industrial law. Why do we have this knee-jerk, prejudiced reaction against it? Perhaps there is a relationship between enlightened approaches in these spheres and effective economic performance. I happen to believe that there is, but let us be open-minded about it and examine it rather than react to it.

I believe—here, I want refer to the very effective speech by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, with all his experience as a Commissioner—that in the eurozone, if we have it, economic integration, as the events of the past few years have made clear, is going to be indispensable. But one cannot encourage simply economic integration; social policy has to be integrated. If there is not a matching social policy for the member countries of the eurozone, I see disaster and acute political instability ahead. One has to think of the consequences of what is being done economically and how one handles it in countries such as Greece, for example, or Spain.

There is one other issue that I should like to mention, because we ought to take it into account more often. One of the difficulties that we face in Britain is the remoteness of Brussels—an apparent elitism and even arrogance in the style of Brussels. This is partly a consequence of technocracy and technocratic organisation, which can too easily start generating its own momentum and leave a gigantic gap between it and the people who are closely involved in society as a whole. We need to look at that issue, because I personally believe that there is a cultural issue there which needs to be addressed.

Whether we like it or not, Britain is part of the world. It is intimately involved in and interconnected with the world; there is no way in which we can go our own way in isolation. Indeed, isolationism in political talk in our country serves the people, our children and our grandchildren no good whatever. We are part of the global international realities and our energies need to go into ensuring that we are working with the international community to do the right things for people as a whole, including the people of Britain—our own people. It is not us against the others; it is us working together with the world in getting it right for everybody, including the British people. If we do not take that approach, we shall certainly be in trouble.

The language that has surrounded the whole, great opt-out saga that we are just about to enter is the language of doing it exactly the wrong way. To think that we can make everybody suspicious within Europe, and everybody increasingly resentful of us as an irritant within Europe, and then cherry pick the bits that we want to go back into, expecting them automatically to say, “Yes, okay, we’ll have the Brits back for that”, is very naive. We have to provide and build a context in which we can be there, benefiting our own people and bringing our influence to bear in the interests of our own people, because we are working for the European and the international community as a whole.

Palestine: United Nations General Assembly Resolution

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, it is obviously a time when we should all turn our minds to how we take things forward. However, in our concern about how we take things forward, it is also important to have some historical context for what has happened, and it is a long story.

We have special responsibility in this country towards Israel because we were one of the principal powers that played a key part in bringing Israel into existence and we must therefore not betray our responsibility in that context. It is also important to remember that, historically and objectively, no people paid a higher price for the creation of the State of Israel than the Palestinian people. It is important therefore to see both sides of the argument in history, because it is not just a current crisis that we face but a deeply rooted history.

I do not happen to believe that the West and our own country under successive Governments have been even-handed in their approach to this situation, when, if any issue in the world demanded even-handedness, it was this one. We have been pro-Israeli, and history will read the message very clearly. We may try to persuade ourselves that we were not letting down the Palestinians but we were, repeatedly. Where has our voice been on the blockade, on the screwing of the economy of Gaza? In two or three years’ time, the one remaining aquifer in Gaza will collapse, because spare parts have not been allowed in through the blockade to maintain it. Ninety per cent of the water in Gaza is not fit for human consumption. The schools, the health, and the economy of Gaza have been screwed.

Almost exactly a year ago I was in the West Bank and Jordan, and up until then I had not realised quite what the settlements meant. They are not just a few nice settlements—Israeli suburbs in the West Bank and Gaza—but fortified encampments with security gates. Palestinian life is absolutely distorted. People are humiliated day after day as they pass through the security gates, where they are treated rather brusquely, to say the least. Farmers are able to get to their land and back again only at certain specified hours. I asked what would happen if a farmer had a heart attack. The UNRWA people told me, “Well, somebody would have to get on to us, and we’d have to try to negotiate an arrangement with the Israelis so that the gates were opened to allow the people back”. We have not faced up to the realities of what is going on.

Another issue worries me very deeply. I recall how in 1967 I was in Israel for the duration of the war. I talked to Israelis then, who said to me, as they listened to militant, pro-Israeli language being broadcast into the country in the excitement of everything that was going on, “It’s all right for these people, but we’ve got to make a future with our neighbours and all the people in the region”. Israelis said that to me. Since then Israelis have refused to serve in the armed services, because they will not be part of what is going on, and other Israelis have made brave stands against these policies. Our absence of even-handedness has let down those brave and courageous Israeli people who have tried to advocate an alternative policy for their country.

We have to look to the future. We must not suddenly switch from our responsibilities. History will not allow us to do that. But it is because we have special responsibility for the creation of the State of Israel that we must always speak honestly and bluntly about what really matters for Israel’s survival. The truth of the matter is that the present policies of Israel—and we all know this—could not be better designed to undermine the future prospects of the people of Israel. They prolong the danger and the threats that will accumulate.

How will we approach the future? Reference has been made to the need for a regional approach, which I am sure is right. We must have a regional approach to secure the future. However, a regional approach cannot impose a solution. No one can impose a solution. The solution will have to be generated by the Palestinian and Israeli people. That is where it will come from. We have an example in our own history, that of Northern Ireland. If it is to work, it must have the commitment of the key parties, which will mean a readiness to talk to people with whom it may not be very easy to talk, just as we learnt that we had to talk to the political wing of the IRA if we were to make progress. That was critical.

However, we also learnt something else in that process in Northern Ireland: that we must keep any preconditions to an absolute minimum because they will only distort everything, and they will not be owned by the participants. Some of the things that as outsiders we see as obviously essential must come from the participants in the negotiations, who have to come to those conclusions themselves. They must go through a process of learning in the negotiations that go on. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, would agree with me that that is exactly what happened in Northern Ireland.

We should also be encouraging and supporting them in practical co-operation. The conference on water organised by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, which I was so glad to be able to attend, was a very interesting example of this. It demonstrated how we can help them to get into practical situations in which they see their mutual interdependence.

The most important point of all is that a negotiated, lasting, enduring solution will have to be inclusive. It will have to draw in the widest possible cross-section of people. It is nonsense, and stupidity, to refuse to see that Hamas has to be part of the solution. This can no longer be tolerated, because of course it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It undermines any chance of emerging moderate or more enlightened leadership in Hamas, and plays right into the hands of the extremists, who are there, and who will use Hamas for their own irreconcilable ideological religious—or other—objectives.

This will take a lot of imagination. What is tragic—and I use the word in the real Greek sense—about the vote last week is that we marginalised ourselves. I hope that my noble friend, who introduced the debate with a particularly good speech, will not mind my saying that the Question refers to talks with the Palestinian leaders since the vote. I cannot imagine that we are very high on the Palestinians’ list of priorities for talks at this juncture.

International Law: Use of Drones

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The right reverend Prelate raises an important point. I can confirm to the House that the UK has not used armed drones against targets in Pakistan. It is a matter for individual states engaged in those practices to discuss those matters.

[Lord Judd]

Does the Minister not agree that there is great urgency in this situation? There is a real danger that we could slip into an age of political assassination, targeted killing and the condoning of extra-judicial murder. Is there not also a danger that, if this trend continues without careful international deliberation about its implications, we could slip into an age in which war becomes an easier management option as distinct from a really grave step to take after everything else has been tried?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord is right to raise the matter; this is an important issue and an important debate. In fact, it was on the front page of the Times today and has been on the front pages of many of our newspapers over time. He will be aware of parliamentary interest in both this House and the other place. In relation to the UK’s conduct, specifically in Pakistan, I can confirm that we do not use armed drones against targets there. We do use unmanned air systems—drones—in Afghanistan, predominantly for surveillance and recognisance tasks.