Iran Nuclear Deal

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

There is speculation about different associations. What is required in that region is a degree of taking stock of what this decision means. We call on not just Iran but all the players in that region to take heed of the need to ensure stability as a priority and to show due restraint. I have made it very clear that Iran has complied with its obligations under the treaty, but the United States has raised particular concerns about the sunset clauses. However, we remain very much committed. We have seen the results and the benefits of the treaty. For other players in the region—my noble friend mentioned several countries—it is also important to reflect on what has been achieved thus far, and the importance of remaining firm on the principles of the treaty and ensuring that we can work with Iran for continued stability in the wider region.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, we stand on the brink of a disaster in the region. There is no doubt that, prior to the JCPOA, Israel was within days of carrying out an attack on what it thought were all the nuclear facilities in Iran. It is highly likely that if this falls apart, which it could, Iran will start work on a nuclear weapon again. What happens then? I am sure Israel will not allow that, and will attack—and if it attacks, people will assume that America is part of it and that we are part of it, and goodness knows what will happen in the entire region. Have we thought through what could happen, and what actions we need to think about taking? Inevitably, in a military sense, we will be pulled into this if that happens.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I think everyone is concerned about the stability of the region. Let me assure the noble Lord that we have raised our concerns with both Iran and Israel to ensure that there is a de-escalation, and no further escalation, in this conflict—which, as the noble Lord points out, will not only destabilise the region itself but have much wider implications. Let us be clear: a regional conflict is in no one’s interests. We recognise Israel’s national security concerns, but we also implore Israel to show due restraint, and Iran, too, to show restraint in its extended influence in various conflicts in the region, notably in places such as Yemen and Syria. What is needed now is restraint across the board, and we will continue to work with all parties to ensure that that prevails. The noble Lord highlights the very challenging situation that we are currently confronting.

Syria: Eastern Ghouta

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Baroness talks about peace, and of course any initiative which is aimed at that is important. But let us be clear. She raises an important point about groups that operate within Syria. She knows that I am aware of this and that I support ensuring that they are not armed in a way which can cause further destruction to Syria. But at the same time, when we look at the situation in Syria today, the continuing war has been caused by the persistence of the Assad regime. It is backed by Russia, which is why we are imploring Russia to take action. What we are seeing happening in Eastern Ghouta is because of what the Assad regime is doing. It needs to relent in its bombardment, and action needs to be taken so that we can get the 700 people who need medical aid out and provide humanitarian assistance to the 400,000 under siege.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, one has only to look at every civil war there has been to know that they are bloody and merciless. There is no doubt that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said, some of the opposition parties are not democratic at all; they are far from it. Some are even worse than Daesh—they are really bad. Does the Minister not agree that we have to be very careful of making judgments? There are no good guys in this—there are victims but no good guys. Both sides are horrible and we need to be very careful of making judgments. We have to try to get a balanced answer to help the victims.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, on the point about good guys, many voices and many representatives within the Syrian opposition want to see a pluralist, non-sectarian, democratic Syria emerge, and we continue to work with them. Of course, there are other people working on the ground—but, as the noble Lord pointed out, there are also those with sinister intent who are following the Islamist agenda of hijacking a noble faith, misrepresenting it and using it to extend the civil war. That is also unacceptable. I agree with the noble Lord that we have always to tread carefully in civil wars, but I am sure he would acknowledge that the Assad regime bears the brunt of the responsibility for the situation in Syria.

Hong Kong

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is quite right and I agree with him totally. Let me assure him that we continue to address this issue through the Chinese authorities, bilateral meetings and the Hong Kong authorities. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, for example, visited last September and in every meeting she had during that visit—indeed, my right honourable friend Sajid Javid visited Hong Kong last November—the very point the noble Lord makes about sustaining, strengthening and upholding the rule of law was clearly made to the Chinese authorities.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, Hong Kong was as colony for many years and in that time, a large number of Hong Kong people served in the Navy and the Army. Some of those who served, many of them for quite long periods, are now not getting any special treatment in trying to come to this country. Is this issue being looked at and dealt with in government—or has it just been pushed to one side?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As the noble Lord may well be aware, people who are Hong Kong residents are granted special consular assistance if they are travelling to third-party countries; indeed, they can visit the UK for up to six months, and we have seen that recently with many people in Hong Kong, including those with the special status the noble Lord mentions. The police is another area we are looking at, and we want to ensure that we can process applications through the normal Home Office channels. But my understanding is that more than 200,000 people resident in Hong Kong have British nationality, and a Home Office process remains in place to look into the individual cases of those who do not. However, I stress that it is an immigration process and the Home Office looks at it closely to ensure that the rights and responsibilities are sustained, and the rights of those seeking British nationality are also protected.

Georgia

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As the noble Lord will be aware from his own experience, it is not just our relationship through the EU. That will remain important once we leave the EU, but those relationships continue through other fora as well, such as membership of NATO—there are alliances there—and through the Security Council. France is a notable and permanent member and we can have candid discussions with other permanent members, such as Russia, which has a key influence in Georgia. I assure the noble Lord—indeed, the whole House—that we will continue to strengthen our international relationships, not just in Georgia. Where we need to work constructively, progressively and proactively with European partners we will continue to do so.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that we need to tread with great care here? One of the reasons for the tension and difficulty is the very loose talk there was some years ago about Georgia becoming part of NATO and the threat that that was to Russia as it stood at the time. We need to be extremely careful not to make this a real cause célèbre. We need to try to defuse some of these areas because the tension between Putin and ourselves is too great anyway.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important issue. It is why we have been working on not just restating the importance of the territorial sovereignty of Georgia, but building sustainable democracy in Georgia. The noble Lord is also quite right to point out the importance of the Russian relationship. Therefore I was delighted, as I am sure all noble Lords acknowledged, that for the first time in almost six years we had a Foreign Secretary visit Russia. He had a very constructive and open dialogue with the Russians on a variety of issues, including the current situation in Georgia.

Visit to Oman, UAE and Iran

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, my noble friend speaks from a deep knowledge of the bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and Iran, and I commend his efforts. He raises the important issue of the nuclear deal. We have certainly been clear. I alluded earlier to the fact that the Prime Minister has been very clear to President Trump on the implications of the decision of the United States. On the specific dates my noble friend mentioned, I shall check the implications and what is pending. I believe that he is correct. The United States, not being part of the nuclear agreement, puts strain on the continuing sustainability of that deal. In saying that, I refer to a point I made earlier: it makes it even more vital to consolidate our efforts and collaborate with other partners, including our efforts through the E3 to ensure that the deal is sustained.

On my noble friend’s point on the Bank of England’s status vis-à-vis the bank account, perhaps I can write to him. Having spent 20 years in financial services, I know that various rules and regulations govern both the central bank and other private banks that may be operating.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder whether there was discussion on Lebanon. Hezbollah has trained up to a very high level in the fighting within Syria, and all the intelligence reports point to the fact that Lebanon is again about to degenerate into civil war. Was there any discussion between the Foreign Secretary and the Iranians, who, of course, are pushing Hezbollah very strongly?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is right to raise that issue. Yes, there were wide-ranging discussions on all the places where Iran has an influence. Certainly Lebanon featured, as we have been concerned about the situation that has been unfolding, particularly with the leadership and the resignation of the Prime Minister in Lebanon. All those issues were raised bilaterally, as was the importance of ensuring greater stability—that wherever Iran has an influence, it brings it to bear in the positive implications of regional stability, including in the important country of Lebanon.

Permanent Structured Cooperation

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the Permanent Structured Cooperation process agreed by 23 European Union member states on 13 November.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Howe affirmed to our EU partners at Monday’s Foreign Affairs Council with Defence Ministers, we welcome Permanent Structured Cooperation as a useful tool to support the development of the capabilities that Europe needs for its security, provided it remains complementary to NATO and encourages EU-NATO co-operation. The United Kingdom’s approach reflects our continuing commitment to European defence and security and to protecting the interests of UK industry.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I have to say that it does not really reassure me. Since 1945, the United Kingdom—until recently, when we started decimating our Armed Forces—and the United States have ensured the defence and security of Europe. The security of the continent of Europe is crucial to the United Kingdom. The Permanent Structured Cooperation process, which involves troops, procurement and a whole raft of defence issues is very misguided. There is no doubt whatever that the heirs to Marshal Zhukov in Russia understand hard combat power. They are not impressed by talking shops, headquarters and posturing. The co-operation process is full of all those. Could the Minister ensure that the United Kingdom is fully involved in this process and at the heart of Europe in defence terms, because we cannot let Europe go running off, not achieving anything and not looking after its security? We are good at this and we need to be fully involved.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Let me assure the noble Lord that we continue to partake in discussions about this. I agree with his points about the cornerstone of the alliance and particularly the work of NATO to ensure not just peace and security across Europe but its benefits further afield as well. It is essential that, as the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, whatever partnership its remaining members choose to take forward, opportunities remain for co-operation directly with NATO of which the United Kingdom is an important and pivotal part.

Daesh: Raqqa

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they were aware of the decision to allow some 4,000 Daesh fighters and their families to leave Raqqa, and what is their assessment of the implications of this decision for security in the region and for the UK.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, we were not involved in the discussions and did not condone the decision. This was a local agreement by local leaders, including the Raqqa Civil Council and tribal elders. Despite territorial losses, Daesh remains a threat and coalition activity against it continues. We remain determined to fight and defeat Daesh. We are prepared for the risk from returnees as Daesh loses territory and we are using a range of tools to disrupt and diminish that threat.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. These clearly are hardened fighters and I hope we have put in place mechanisms to spot them when they come in. Militarily, we have now effectively destroyed the caliphate in physical terms, and we should be very pleased about that huge success. Now, we must move towards trying to get a proper ceasefire in Syria. The only way to do that is to involve the SDF, the Kurds and other coalition members, but also Assad. Assad might be a loathsome man but he is a fact of life on the ground. If he and his structure suddenly went, 2 million to 3 million Alawites and Christians could possibly be wiped out but would certainly be refugees. We really must deal with this dreadful man because otherwise we will not have a ceasefire, the fighting will continue and people will continue to be killed. Will we now have more connection with Assad, the SDF and the others to ensure that there is a ceasefire, so that we can then move forward to some sort of future settlement?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

First, I agree with the noble Lord about the despicable nature of the crimes committed by Daesh fighters. We have all rightly condemned those, and the Government have taken a very strong stance to ensure that they are held to account. The noble Lord will be aware that in September, during the UNGA, we led on a Security Council resolution specifically to hold Daesh fighters to account.

On the situation regarding the different parties, the noble Lord is right that the coalition continues to support the SDF and the Kurds. However, on the specific issue of Bashar Assad, we have made our position clear: we do not believe that he should be leading Syria at the end of any discussions that take place. That is ultimately a call for the Syrian people themselves but we have been consistent in our call to ensure that there is a true representation of civilian communities in Syria, and clear that Bashar Assad does not provide any sense of a final settlement being reached in Syria. At the same time, I take on board totally the fact that we must ensure the security and safety of all communities within Syria, particularly the minorities who have suffered dreadfully during this far too long conflict.

UN Security Council: Information Sharing

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important point about international relations, and in that regard I assure him that we have a very deep and long historic relationship with the United States. It is a strong relationship because we share objectives on many fronts. Equally, the strength of that relationship determines that when we disagree on important issues, as the noble Lord has highlighted, we also make that position quite clear; climate change was one issue, as was the recent issue of the Iran nuclear deal. In both those instances, we made it clear that we believe it was regrettable that the US took the stance that it did. That position has been made clear to President Trump by our Prime Minister. However, the strength of our relationship allows us to have those very candid conversations with the US and, indeed, others, when we do disagree.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, we are the only permanent member of the Security Council that is reducing the size of its armed forces; indeed, we have reduced it by a third since 2010. Does the Minister not think this must make the other members of the Security Council wonder about our eligibility to be there; and, indeed, make other members of the UN consider how important we believe maintaining security and peace around the world actually is?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord knows that our Armed Forces remain very strong and that we are at the forefront of relations with regard to peacekeeping. Indeed, I will talk about this very subject at the UN Security Council next week. Contrary to what the noble Lord has expressed, our partners not just in the Security Council but across the General Assembly welcome the United Kingdom’s leadership on a raft of different issues, most recently the Prime Minister’s personal initiative in leading the charge to combat modern slavery.

Hurricane Irma: Disaster Relief

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises a series of questions; in the interest of allowing more questions to be asked, I will write to him specifically to answer them. However, I will pick up on one or two of his points. The UK Government responded within 24 hours. My noble friend may well be aware that RFA “Mounts Bay” arrived within 24 hours of the storm’s impact and restored power supplies at Anguilla’s hospital, rebuilt the emergency operations centres and, importantly, cleared the runway to allow planes that were waiting to arrive at the airports to come in. It then followed on and delivered a similar response to BVI. However, I will respond to the issues my noble friend raised in his other questions.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the aid budget is 37% of the defence budget, and the defence budget is under immense pressure. Does the Minister not think that the fantastic work being done by HMS “Ocean” and RFA “Mounts Bay” out in the West Indies should be covered by the aid budget, because, quite clearly, that describes what they are doing?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important question, and it is necessary to put it in the context of the international rules to which we subscribe. As he may be aware, my right honourable friend the International Development Secretary has directly responded to the issue. She has raised it with the OECD and we are also raising the eligibility of ODA spending on the overseas territories and other countries to ensure that, when such crises hit, we are able to make funding available. That said, as the noble Lord may also be aware, we have already allocated £62 million to the aid effort. More is being done, and an additional £5 million was pledged to Dominica, which was recently hit by a hurricane.

Hurricane Irma

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I am proud of what the men and women of the Armed Forces are doing but we are being economical with the actuality of far-sightedness and deploying RFA “Mounts Bay”. We have historically deployed a ship to the West Indies—it used to be called the West Indies guard ship—all the time precisely for hurricane relief of our dependencies and to counter drugs.

The RFA “Largs Bay” has gone because we do not have enough frigates. A frigate has about 200 men. Every ship in the Royal Navy exercises and has to pass a big exam about disaster relief before it goes off to sea. The RFA “Mounts Bay” has a Royal Fleet Auxiliary civilian crew—they have done some work on that—and that is part of the reason we need 40 Marines and engineers on board. The amount of effort it could put in was probably less than could have been done by a frigate.

Having a ship there makes a great deal of sense. However, it was not far-sightedness for this particular operation because we always have one there. It is wrong to pretend that it was far-sightedness in regard to this particular hurricane.

However, my question is not about that. I have been concerned at the reports of British citizens in various places, such as St Martin, not being collected by the Americans because we have no agreement with America. If we do not have agreements with America and other allied nations to withdraw our own nationals—not only for hurricane relief but for other things that might happen in different parts of the world—something has gone very wrong. Can we ensure that in the future this does not happen and that there are links in place to ensure that people will be recovered?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord speaks from great experience but the RFA “Mounts Bay” was dispatched two months ago. I acknowledge his point that this has been an ongoing deployment through different ships and different vessels but, equally, I am sure he will acknowledge that this is done exactly for the reason that the hurricane season in the Caribbean is not a new phenomenon. What was different was the force of Hurricane Irma, a category 5. The deployment ensured that we had immediate assistance on board the RFA “Mounts Bay”, which was already in the region. It acted on that and she was able to visit both Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands. Today she has returned to Anguilla to help in providing basic reconstruction material.

The noble Lord made a point about the consular support we have made available for the population and for evacuation. Consular support is, in a general sense, exactly that. It establishes who needs what. I said earlier that, for anyone who needs to leave any of the affected territories, we are working with the appropriate authorities to make that happen. He mentioned St Martin specifically. The US, Germans and the Dutch are sending in flights today and we are liaising directly with them to ensure that those Brits who want to leave that territory are able to do so. They are prioritising according to need.

We are currently also working on this across other capitals in Europe, including Paris and The Hague. As I indicated earlier, we have had great assistance from the Cayman Islands and Barbados.

I emphasise again that this is about co-ordination with those in the region. The noble Lord mentioned the US and, yes, we are working directly with it. I indicated in the Statement how we are working collectively with the US. We have had no pushback from the other countries, nor in our support have we resisted others. When crises hit we come together collaboratively in our humanitarian efforts, and that has been reflected in this crisis.