Syria

Lord Wright of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, on initiating his debate. I thank him for taking the rather unusual step of inviting noble Lords to take part through the correspondence columns of the Guardian two days ago.

Although I agree with the main purpose of the noble Lord’s proposal, which is to encourage the European Union and Her Majesty’s Government to do more to help the appalling plight of the Syrian refugees, I have to take issue with the implication of his Question, namely that our current emphasis should be on evacuation and resettlement. With the Geneva conference, under the chairmanship of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, only 13 days away, I hope that the Minister will accept that our main effort, and that of our European colleagues, should now be to work for a diplomatic outcome at that conference, and one which might at least promote a ceasefire between the warring parties and enable at least some of the Syrian refugees to return safely to their homes.

I know that the Minister usually replies to questions as a Minister from the Home Office. However, picking up a point made earlier today by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, Front-Bench Ministers speak for HMG and not for their departments. I hope therefore that the Minister will nevertheless be able to give us, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, a little more information about the Geneva conference than I have been able so far to garner from the media. Although it was reported that the Russians, the Americans and the United Nations had reached agreement in late December that the aim of the conference was,

“to bring two broadly representative and credible delegations of the Syrian Government and opposition to a negotiating table”,

I have seen no details since then of whether the Secretary-General has been able to get the deeply divided opposition, who seem to spend more effort fighting each other rather than opposing the Syrian Government, to put together anything approaching a credible delegation to represent them at Geneva. Nor have I seen any details of which other national delegations have been invited to take part, other than reports in late December which remarkably did not mention either any European participation or any from Jordan or Saudi Arabia.

There have been recent reports, which I profoundly hope are untrue, that the United States is blocking a proposal that Iran should be invited to take part, even though the Russian news agency TASS has recently quoted Mr Ban Ki-Moon as expressing the view that it would be useful for Iran to be invited. It is essential that Iran should be there if we are to have any hope of getting a diplomatic resolution to this crisis. Although there have been several questions in this House about the Government’s attitude towards Iranian participation, I have not yet heard a definitive response to those questions. I hope that the Minister may be in a position to enlighten us on this important point.

I suppose I should apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, for having strayed some way from the precise proposal in his Question for Short Debate. Nevertheless, I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some assessment of where the Government believe the Geneva conference stands, and whether his right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary agrees that all our efforts, and those of the European Union, should now be aimed at helping the Secretary-General and Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi ensure a diplomatic outcome to the Geneva process, which might enable at least some of the Syrian refugees to be resettled in their own homes.

[Lord Warner (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, on securing this debate, and on the eloquent passion with which he spoke.

I slightly take issue—and I rarely do—with the noble Lord, Lord Wright, who said that we should just concentrate our efforts on diplomacy. When I was a Minister I thought that, as a Government, we were supposed to be able to multitask. It is not beyond the wit of a Government both to pursue a peace settlement through diplomacy and to do something to alleviate the appalling circumstances in which many Syrians live, both in other countries and within their own country.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My point was that our priority should be the Geneva conference. I was not for a moment suggesting that we should slacken our efforts to help the refugees.

[Lord Warner]

I misunderstood the emphasis that the noble Lord was placing. His points are valid, but it is equally valid to say that we should do something about the crisis that is already there, not just in Syria but now in these other countries as well.

I speak as someone who has witnessed the position in Lebanon of the refugees from the Syrian conflict, and who has spoken to the leaders of that country, from the President downwards, who are having to handle this situation. Lebanon is a country that has enough problems of its own without taking in the equivalent of 20% to 25% of its own population. Just imagine what would happen if a European country was asked to take in numbers of that particular order.

I declare my interest as a member of the advisory board of the Council for European Palestinian Relations, and I have made many of my visits under its auspices. I do so slightly nervously, as the Israeli Defence Minister seems to have declared the council an illicit organisation. I interpreted his declaration to mean simply that we were doing too good a job in getting European parliamentarians to see the circumstances in which Palestinians were living.

There are now even more Syrian refugees in Lebanon than when I visited. Winter has come, and women with young children now live in the bitter cold, with nothing but cardboard and plastic sheeting for protection. Their shelter is damp, dark and unhygienic. They fled their country when the bombs started to fall not because they chose to, and women and children are living there in many cases without any male support in many of the family groupings. To some extent, we have facilitated the situation by refusing to make any real effort to take some of those people out of the circumstances in which they find themselves.

Over 50% of the Syrian refugees are children. That means that more than 1 million children are living and being brought up in the most appalling conditions. The Government should reflect on how they think those young people—assuming they survive to adulthood, and some will not—are likely to feel about those affluent countries that have actually refused to take any of them. That is something that the Government would do well to reflect on—and if that was put and explained to the British people, they might give the Government a surprise, and be much more welcoming than the Government believe that they would be. I share the views of my noble friend Lord Dubs on that matter.

I do not want to go much further on the general issue, other than to say that, if it is true that Germany can accept 10,000 people and the other, poorer countries can accept people too, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said, I find it shameful that we as a country are unable to make the kind of gesture that other countries have made. It is not sufficient just to give money to the humanitarian efforts of the United Nations. Could the Minister explain three things in that area? First, why cannot we emulate countries of a similar size to us in Europe in what they are doing? Secondly, why are the Government being so rigid about allowing Syrians to leave the terrible circumstances in which they are living and to come into this country to be hosted by members of their own family who are here? That seems to me reckless behaviour. Thirdly, how many of the 2,000-plus Syrians who have sought asylum here have had their asylum application accepted and/or been given leave to remain on a permanent basis? If he cannot give those figures now, perhaps he would write to me to save me the trouble of putting down a Parliamentary Question.

Lastly, I draw attention to a particular group of refugees—the Palestinians—who have been displaced already and have been living in Syria for many years. I want to draw particular attention to the 30,000 Palestinian refugees trapped in the Yarmouk camp on the outskirts of Damascus. It has been under tight siege for many months by the regime’s forces, and the regime is preventing humanitarian assistance being provided to the besieged people. Around 30 people have died already, but there are nearly 30,000 Palestinians living in those circumstances, which are probably worse than the circumstances of some of the people living in the Lebanon. What action have the UK Government taken to try to persuade the regime, if necessary through their Iranian colleagues, to help humanitarian aid to get into that camp in Yarmouk?