Geneva Conventions and United Nations Personnel (Protocols) Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction to the clause, and I shall not oppose the stand part motion at the debate's conclusion. I shall simply make a couple of brief points. I was intrigued when the Minister, almost in parenthesis, referred to the old symbol of the red lion and sun, which the royalist regime in Iran employed. I think I understood him to say that, although the symbol is no longer used, it remains a part of the appropriate conventions and it could be revived in future by some hypothetical Government in Iran, or somewhere else in the world, who chose to revert to the red lion and sun. The adoption of the red crystal is the outcome of pragmatic negotiations and I am pleased that the decision means that it will be possible at long last for the Israeli and the Palestinian humanitarian organisations to participate fully in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent family.