Hezbollah: Threat to the United Kingdom
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Godson for securing this admittedly short debate on such an important matter. I apologise to him and the House for missing the first five seconds of his remarks.
I will make three short points, picking up some of the points made by others. First, who or what is Hezbollah? It is an Iranian proxy. Iran’s recent direct attacks on Israel are a stark reminder of the existential threat that Israel faces. These Benches unequivocally support Israel’s right to defend itself, including in Lebanon against Hezbollah, whose attacks have led thousands of Israelis to be and remain refugees, in effect, in their own country. I hope the Minister can reassure us that the Government will rally the international community to reaffirm its commitment to the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which is the basis for the peace we all crave.
My second point is on Hezbollah’s threat to the United Kingdom. There is a clear risk that the UK could be threatened through an attack on our sovereign military bases in Cyprus. In April, the then leader of Hezbollah—the leadership of these organisations has recently changed so quickly—issued a threat to Cyprus, which was widely seen as a threat to our bases there. The head of MI5 has warned that the threat of Iran-backed terror activity in the UK itself is very high, confirming that the agency had dealt with 20 Iranian-backed plots on British soil in the last couple of years. Of course, Hezbollah has form for such attacks. Earlier this year, an Argentine court ruled that the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300, was carried out by Hezbollah, at the direction of Iran.
My third and final point is on enforcing the law, and there are two parts to this. First, in the UK, as we have heard, Hezbollah has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation in full since 2019—that means that inviting support for Hezbollah is a criminal offence. But we also invite the Government to enlighten us again this evening on the current status of proscribing the IRGC. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was very vocal about this, as is his wont, and we look forward to the Minister updating us on this issue.
Secondly, Parliament makes the law and our independent police and the independent CPS enforce it. When people chant at a demo, “Yemen, turn a boat around”, they mean not Yemen but the Houthis. When they shout, “Lebanon, turn a tank around”, they mean not Lebanon but Hezbollah. So we as a Parliament are entitled to look to our independent police and CPS to enforce the laws that we have passed. We on these Benches will support the Government in working for peace in the Middle East but also in keeping the peace on our streets here in the United Kingdom.
King’s Speech
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, the former Lord Chief Justice. One of the many pleasures of this House is that, unlike in my professional life, judges do not always get the last word.
I declare two interests: the first, obviously, as a practising barrister and therefore user of the justice system; the second as a long-time admirer of the Minister who opened this debate. I congratulate him on his new role and his excellent maiden speech. I also very much enjoyed the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe, and look forward to the maiden speech of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint. We have a debate bookended by maiden speeches. Without getting into the vexed question of House of Lords reform, it is only in this House as currently constituted that one can hear, in the same debate, some of our nation’s leading repairers of “soles”, both spiritual and now also temporal.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
They are just catching on.
I do not know whether the noble Lord occupies my old room at the Ministry of Justice, but we share a firm commitment to justice and the justice system. There is of course an overlap with yesterday’s debate on the constitution, because the rule of law is not actually a law at all but a constitutional principle. In that sense we should all be declaring an interest, because we all have an interest—a financial one—in the maintenance of the rule of law. Without the rule of law there would be no security in transactions, no enforceable right to property. But it goes well beyond matters financial. Without the rule of law, there is nothing to separate or protect us from despotism on the one hand or anarchy on the other.
That brings me to the first of three short points arising out of the King’s Speech. The first is the safety of public venues and keeping the public safe from terrorism. The Minister referred to what he called the appalling and horrific terrorist attack in the Manchester Arena, which he also called senseless. I am afraid, however, that there are too many people who see in their warped and twisted vision some sense in that sort of attack, and that means our response to terrorism must go beyond merely steps to keep people safe. We must be unyielding against those who commit terrorism, but also those who fund terrorist attacks; those who advocate for them; those who explain them away; those who equivocate about them; or those who fail to assist the authorities in their efforts to thwart them. That means we need to engage with those in all communities—and they are the majority in every community—who support the rule of law and stand against those who seek to subvert it.
The second point concerns leasehold and commonhold reform, the draft Bill on which I await with interest. We must ensure that we have a system of land ownership which is fit for the 21st century. I remember from my university days that in land law, the devil really is in the detail, and it changes slowly. I remember talking about my land law essays with my father, who still referred to the Law of Property Act 1925 as the new property legislation. No doubt any change will be viewed with horror in some parts of Lincoln’s Inn, where they still have flying freeholds—a concept which is too arcane for discussion at any time, but certainly at a quarter to 10 at night. I hope the proposed legislation will be clear, concise, modern and will provide us with a useful system of ownership of land.
Finally, a short word about the Arbitration Bill. I welcome this very much. When I was a Minister, I helped the Law Commission set up its work on arbitration. London is the global centre for international commercial arbitration. The 1996 Act is the gold standard, but like many things made of gold, it does need a bit of polishing from time to time. There is one point which I was going to mention about the Arbitration Act, but my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate warned me that if I mentioned again what he regards as the esoteric legal topics of monism and dualism, he might not be responsible for his actions. I do not know how he would react if I more than merely mentioned tonight the difficulties presented by an arbitration agreement having what lawyers call a floating governing law, but I am not minded to find out. I will take that up with the Minister offline, and leave the detail for another day, although I suspect it will be a day on which my learned friend finds he is unavailable to attend your Lordships’ House.