Geneva Conventions and United Nations Personnel

My Lords, I thank all who have participated for their support for this Bill and for this thoughtful debate. I begin by reassuring the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that the introduction of the crystal will not in any way undermine the standing of the other two symbols. Indeed, it is the hope of those who came to this solution that creating a third religiously neutral symbol would prevent a proliferation of other symbols. It is hoped that the protections available to the first two symbols will be extended to this third one so they will all be on a level playing field and enjoy restored respect. In that way, the worrying, debilitating and degenerative fight about whether the first two symbols were becoming religious in nature would be at an end and the symbols would once more enjoy, we hope, universal authority and the power to protect because they would be respected. The protocol clearly covers under exactly what circumstances a country can adopt and incorporate its own symbol, as Israel has done. In much of this, the parties to the agreement will police it and make sure that people are satisfied that it is used within the framework of what has been agreed. I suppose I should be relieved that on one ground at least I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and, through him, to the Daily Mail, that the British Red Cross is safe with this Government. It is not our intention, nor is it the intention of the British Red Cross movement, to change the name or the emblem. There is a lot of history behind it and it will stay that way, so the Daily Mail can relax. That said, over time we expect more and more countries to avail themselves of the Red Crystal because unfortunately the polarisation around religion and religious symbols seems likely to grow rather than dissolve as the world moves forward. On whether there is special pleading behind this and whether it covers more than a small handful of countries, the original initiative within the Red Cross movement came from the need to find a way to include Israel in a way that it felt met its needs. That then got entangled with the separate issue of how to allow the Palestinian Red Crescent movement in. Eritrea is also reluctant to use the first two symbols. So there is a general sense that the crystal will get increased usage moving forward. It is just a sad commentary on the way of the world we live in. Let me turn to the UN clause. As a number of noble Lords were kind enough to say, it is a great pleasure for me to see through this piece of national legislation. One of the darkest clouds of my latter years at the UN was the severity and growing frequency of attacks on UN humanitarian workers. Let me be clear that this protocol alone will not solve that problem. It is an important step and a demonstration by the UK that we take this very seriously. However, as it is not on UK territories that threats to UN humanitarian workers are likely to occur, we are in a sense trying to lead by example in doing this, encouraging others to adopt the protocol. More critically, we are encouraging them to recognise in their own justice systems and the priorities that they set for themselves that attacks on humanitarian workers—particularly UN workers, the category covered by this protocol—is a heinous offence that they must address. The core point is how many countries with UN peacekeeping or major humanitarian missions have so far adopted the protocol. The Central African Republic, Cyprus, Lebanon, Liberia and Sierra Leone all have UN missions and are signatories to the protocol as well. Of the original convention, 87 countries have ratified it, while 34 have signed the protocol and 16 have fully ratified it as well. Perhaps we need to look at that sub-group most clearly. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, queried our record on other outstanding international legislation. I reassure her that the draft Heritage Protection Bill contains the necessary implementing legislation that will enable the Government to ratify the Hague convention. The draft Bill was published in April 2008 and is currently subject to pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation. We remain committed to it, and it will be brought forward at a later date as soon as parliamentary time allows. I know from the difficulty we had fitting even this minnow of a Bill into your Lordships’ busy legislative programme and that of the other place, that this is currently a difficult issue; we have a bit of a queue of legislation. However, I reassure the noble Baroness that we have by no means lost focus on this. We recognise that legislation’s importance. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for there to be a public memorial to UN personnel killed in the course of duty certainly appeals to me and is very much part of the broader issue that we want to address in terms of giving proper respect to those who lose their lives, and fits within a culture of respect and, for that matter, protection. I plan to share the idea with others in Government to see whether we can move forward with it. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, was right to say that the convention applies only to UN staff. I do not think that it is limited to just one subset of agencies, but she was correct to say that the Bill does not apply more broadly to humanitarian workers. We need continually to press for a fuller set of protections that would mean that people who work for Save the Children, Oxfam or other organisations were similarly protected. The Bill sets the right direction, but it is not all-embracing. I conclude by asking the House to give the Bill a Second Reading. Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.