Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Lord Pickles Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

The environment is bad in Gaza, but this Bill is about boycotts.

Now, no less a moral authority than Helen Suzman said that boycotts do not work. In 1987, she said:

“If there were any chance that sanctions would dismantle apartheid, I would be the first to support them. But reducing South Africa to a wasteland would lead not to a nonracial democracy but to more oppression and misery”.


A boycott, in particular a boycott of the so-called Occupied Territories, would not actually change the international scene as far as a two-state solution goes. The only people who would be hurt are the impoverished Palestinians working in the businesses in the Occupied Territories. This was proven by the SodaStream case. SodaStream closed down because it was thought unacceptable to deal with it because it worked in the Occupied Territories. Hundreds of Palestinians lost their jobs; SodaStream moved to Israel. We have to drop the illusion that a boycott of Israel, or indeed any other country, will achieve anything meaningful, let alone when it is carried out by a local authority as opposed to the Government. Environmental damage is indeed a problem, but I am not sure this Bill is the way to tackle it.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak on Amendment 15, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I take a slightly different view from what has just been said. I think the Committee owes the noble Lord, Lord Hain, some thanks; he has managed to put together what it is like in extremis—how this Bill will be dealt with when it is faced with war. Now, I cannot recall a single war in the history of our planet that did not harm the environment.

I suppose that when we put this thing together, on the facts that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, gave, we are probably going to have to think about how much of the damage was caused by the Gazans. How much of a discount should there be for the amount of damage the Gazans caused? In particular, one of Hamas’s first acts after murdering children was to cut off the electricity and the water supply, and it continued to ensure that anybody that came to try to put back the electricity or restore the water supply faced violence. The pipes that would have been used to improve sanitation and have the flow of clean water were stolen and used to fire rockets into Israel. Some 25% of those rockets fell short, killing Gazans, leaving ordnance around Gaza, particularly in the north.

All the concrete that was there to build roads, hotels and social facilities was stolen by Hamas to build the tunnels. The tunnels in themselves were a great environmental risk, because they were not built to building regulations. They were quite close to the surface; they were beneath and beside houses; they affected the foundations, which meant that any disturbance, whether it be earthquakes or the dropping of bombs, made those houses so much more unsafe and susceptible to collapse.

There is the use of flying incendiary bombs, released by supporters of Hamas across into Israel, designed to burn crops. Burning crops causes all kinds of problems. It seems illogical that Hamas should have done that, but it did it in order to make life difficult for Gazans. That is why it is sitting on so much of the food supply; that is why there are lorries waiting to deliver aid into Gaza, but Hamas will not allow it.

I take exception to the quote relating to the Red Cross; if the Red Cross can go in to make that kind of assessment, it should be able to see the hostages. The Red Cross has made no attempt to meet with the hostages.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

What has this got to do with the boycotts Bill?

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

All I was doing was speaking to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hain, about which he was immensely eloquent. He mentioned all the things I am mentioning now. The noble Baroness should perhaps pay a little more attention when the noble Lord, Lord Hain, speaks.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Don’t be rude!

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I apologise for being rude. I was merely trying to give the noble Baroness some advice on when it is sensible to interrupt and when it is best to keep your peace.

Finally, it seems sensible that not every public body will have somebody with the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on it to give this kind of advice. It seems very sensible that—

[Lord Warner (CB)]

Risking my life slightly, I wish to intervene. The noble Lord has made a lot of statements about the damage done either within the regimes run by the Gazan authorities—Hamas—or as a result of war. I have been to Gaza and the West Bank quite a few times, sometimes when there has been a reasonable peace and the people have been able to get on with their lives. During those periods, the pollution of water and of the sea and the problems of sewage were monumental. This is not something to do with the war, the wars, or the tumult from invasions; it is actually that the status quo in Gaza is appalling. It was not just me who said this. I seem to remember that a former Prime Minister, who is now the Foreign Secretary, described Gaza as an “open-air prison”. Does the noble Lord accept that there are some seriously long-entrenched problems of—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Warner (CB)]

If the noble Lord had not jumped up I would have got to my question; it needed some context. Does the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, accept that there are some long-standing problems, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Hain, mentioned, with the state of the environment in Gaza?

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I am most grateful; I was actually just about to finish, but I will take into consideration what was said. I too have visited Gaza in happier times; some of the happy times I spent in the region were in Gaza by the Mediterranean Sea. The noble Lord is right: there have been some long-standing environmental problems in Gaza, which have been caused largely by Hamas. Let me give the noble Lord just one example. Hamas refused to co-operate with Israel on a desalination plant. Hamas could have had a desalination plant, which would have provided lots of fresh water, but it did not want it because it does not want to see ordinary Gazan citizens enjoy their life. Hamas wants them to be continuously in a state of disruption.

The final point I was making was that not every public body would have the benefit of the guidance of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, nor would it necessarily have someone else to offer a balance to what he said, so I think that decisions regarding Israel are better taken by the Government.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that interventions should be brief and about clarification on a technical point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I agree that they are not that similar, and I have never suggested that they are. The reason I brought in the South Africa comparison, and majored on it, is that legal opinion says that this Bill would have made the anti-apartheid campaigns of the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s illegal. That is why I brought the argument into play. It is not to advocate a boycott, disinvestment or sanctions policy against Israel, which I have never done in this House or elsewhere. If noble Lords are going to disagree with me, as they are entitled to do, then they should make the case on the arguments as they stand.

Since the noble Baroness has intervened again on this, I am sure she has read widely on it, and I am not going to disagree with that, but Nelson Mandela did not agree with her. He said that sanctions were critical. They were not the only thing, and I did not say that they were. The internal contradictions of the system, the fact that the economy was almost on the point of collapse by the time that President de Klerk released Nelson Mandela, that the country was on the brink of civil war and facing the abyss in that respect, was why the people who had imprisoned him for 27 years and oppressed his people were forced to negotiate with him, both for his freedom and for that of his people. It was an accumulation of factors, but sanctions were certainly very effective. The noble Baroness spoils her case about Israel by seeking to deny that.

The noble Lord, Lord Pickles, made a strong point that there are others culpable for the environmental destruction, and I have never denied that. He made some important points about the culpability of Hamas as well.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

Forgive me for interrupting, but I have just realised that when I made my speech, I did not declare my interests. I would like to do so now, particularly those relating to friendship for Israel.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I am happy to be interrupted on that point.

My point to the noble Lord, and to the whole House, is that this Bill is technically flawed. I refer to the explanatory statement that I put on the face of my amendment:

“This amendment seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State cannot remove environmental misconduct as an exception in the Schedule by regulations”—


in other words, by executive decision. This should not be possible, and it should remain in primary legislation. That was the purpose of my amendment.

That brings me on to what the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, argued. He—and I commend him for this—technically disputed the basis for my amendment, which he is entitled to do. I disagree with his interpretation, and I do ask the noble Lord to reflect on this: what was factually erroneous about what I said in terms of the case I put on environmental destruction in Gaza and the West Bank?

The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for whom I have a great deal of respect and count as a friend, pointed out that Israel has planted a considerable number of trees, for which I commend Israel. My point is that there is terrible environmental destruction in Gaza and the West Bank now. Nobody can dispute that, and it has been going on for a long time, including the destruction and poisoning of the water supply for many Palestinian residents there.