Government of Qatar

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Moynihan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of current relations with the government of Qatar.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, recent years have seen the torch of international attention shone into the recesses of the State of Qatar as it prepares to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It is a country that, since it won the right to host the world’s leading global sports event, has been more than aware that the spotlight would shine on all aspects of its country, policies, laws and people. The Government of Qatar have turned this opportunity into a national challenge for change—a dynamic for managing the modernisation of a small country into a fast-changing leader in the region with global influence and strategic importance for the UK.

Before I seek to set out the case for this view, I declare a key interest. The background to this debate came from Sir David Amess, a close friend for nearly 40 years, who encouraged me to join the APPG on Qatar as vice-chair of the group with responsibility for sport.

Qatar lies at the strategic epicentre of many of the key issues that dominate international politics today. As we sought to manage the exit strategy from Afghanistan, it was the Qataris who brought stability and support to the lives of thousands of refugees, many of whom were seeking support in the UK. It is a country that has been vital to the UK by ensuring the security and prosperity of the Afghan people, providing safe passage to unaccompanied children heading to new homes here, fighting for the rights of women and minorities through its open dialogue with the Taliban, and evacuating 74,000 people from Afghanistan—and over 210 British citizens—while housing the British embassy to Afghanistan in Doha.

Qatar is a friend and an ally. It supplies 20% of our gas requirements and has directed its resources to co-invest with Rolls-Royce on a net-zero journey to deliver a multibillion-dollar pathway to achieve that goal by 2030, working on small modular reactors to create net-zero carbon energy at scale; to back an educational foundation for innovation in technology outside the nuclear industry, where the promotion of energy transition projects maps the steps towards pioneering climate change technology; to look to support 10,000 climate tech jobs; and to aim to create five UK unicorns by 2030 with the support of the Qatar Foundation.

The UK is offering substantial support in its hosting of the FIFA World Cup. Foster, Zaha Hadid Architects, Turner & Townsend, the FA, football clubs such as Leeds United and Sheffield United, universities such as Leeds Beckett and the University of Liverpool and many others are working on projects to harness the power of football to drive positive change.

As we know, Qatar is a country that has invested heavily in the UK and seeks a further £5 billion of investment in our economy by the end of this year. It hosts the RAF Middle East headquarters at the al-Udeid airbase, where coalition forces are based in the fight against Daesh. It works with the UK on cybersecurity. It has a joint Typhoon squadron and seeks to ensure a combined strong stand against terrorism and the promotion of peace, stability and security in the Middle East. Now, when it will become the first country in the Middle East and the Arab world to host the FIFA World Cup, we should look forward to further collaboration to ensure that football leaves a positive human, economic, social and environmental legacy for the country, the region and the world.

There are rightly matters of significant concern to Members of this House which the torch of international attention has magnified, not least the treatment of migrant workers. In the face of widespread international concern, the Qatar Government were right, from the outset, to extend an invitation to the International Labour Organization to set up a well-staffed office in Doha. Its recent in-depth analysis showed that 50 workers had lost their lives in 2020, but these included work-related deaths across all aspects of society and the economy, including, for example, road traffic accidents.

The ILO must, of course, be free to criticise and publicise its concerns, and it is. It is expected to remain and to protect the interests of the migrant labour workers after the World Cup, and I very much hope that it does. Every human rights issue must be pursued. Everyone deserves the right to work safely and securely, whether that be in Qatar, the UK or elsewhere. Qatar’s national policy on occupational safety and health has had to be transformative, and it has been. The end of the kafala system was a critically important first step and established a direction of travel for many other countries in the Middle East that retain it, either entirely or in some form. The Qataris know that they still have further to go. They will need to ensure media freedom. A minimum wage has been introduced, and the banning of exit visas is an essential and critical step. It is also essential that no action is taken against members of the LGBTQ+ community who arrive to be present for the World Cup finals. Subsequent reform must provide a welcome sign to the world and, indeed, to the world of sport.

We are to host the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham later this year. We must continue to campaign to reverse the position that the majority of Commonwealth countries participating in the Games still criminalise sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex and other forms of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. Homosexual activity remains a criminal offence in more than 30 of the 54 sovereign states of the Commonwealth, and legal in only 19. I hope my noble friend will confirm that we will continue to engage with all countries where homosexuality is a criminal offence to seek an end to those laws, for we need to continue working with international partners and civil society to promote and defend universal freedoms throughout the world.

At Oral Questions in the Lords on 30 November, calls, led excellently by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, were made by some to boycott the FIFA World Cup or to adopt the now well-trodden policy of calling for a boycott by government officials and members of the royal family of attending the event. My view is well known, not least to the noble Lord, Lord Collins: that the boycott of any sporting event by Ministers and officials is the worst example of posture politics in the world of sport. It serves little purpose. It always generates a strong response from the host city or country and is forgotten the moment the sporting event starts.

I have long taken an active stance on human rights issues, currently as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sport, Modern Slavery and Human Rights. All Governments need to act decisively on human rights abuses wherever they exist by making the strongest representations to the country concerned. I oppose calls for a boycott or the withdrawal of government support. It remains my view that for sports boycotts to be effective, they must have the broad support of the international community and be the product not of posturing or reprisal but of an astute and practical moral calculus including a wide-ranging package of trade, travel and diplomatic measures to lead to action that will best advance the cause of human rights and the well-being of those whose rights are violated, as in apartheid-ridden South Africa.

At the same time, it would be wrong to underestimate the growing international influence of sport and the power of the FIFA World Cup or Olympic movement. The goal of sport is to spread fundamental human values as widely as possible, not to confine them exclusively to the western world, as we tended to do in the 20th century. Sport is about humanity and can contribute to the changes we should all seek by unifying our whole approach in seeking the change that is necessary wherever an event is held.

I would go further and argue that one reason why the FIFA World Cup should be held in Qatar is because sport is in itself a force for good. It is a mass phenomenon that gives enjoyment to hundreds of millions of people every week. We have gone far beyond the principle of the value of sport simply as entertainment. Sport, as a universal language, can help to promote peace, tolerance, reconciliation, change and understanding. It cuts across lines of class, nationhood, ethnicity and culture that might otherwise divide, and it is an exceptional vehicle for bringing people together, bridging differences and promoting communication and understanding. As a result, I firmly believe that by working together we can help Qatar to continue on the remarkable journey that it has embarked upon. I look forward to this debate and the response from the Minister on behalf of the Government.