My Lords, perhaps I may begin by being the first person in this Chamber to pay tribute to the late Captain Sir Tom Moore, who died a few minutes ago, I understand. He was a great British hero and, even if I were to live to 200, I could never hope to emulate his courage, his thorough decency, his niceness and his sheer pizzazz. No doubt there will be proper tributes, in this Chamber and elsewhere, in due course, but I simply say this—we shall remember him.
I also commiserate with my noble friend the Minister, who I believe is self-isolating. I did it for four months and one week last year and, despite getting a letter almost every other week from the Secretary of State warning me that I must not go outside but I could open a window for fresh air, I am dashed if I am going to do that again—so here I am.
Of course I support my other noble friend Lord Alton’s excellent Amendment 3B. He has a long and noble history of advancing the case against genocide, wherever in the world it may occur. I pay tribute to his highly persuasive speech today, and also to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Cormack. I only say to my noble friend Lord Forsyth that I wish I had known his ploy a couple of days ago, before I spent hours trying to figure out the difference between the amendments —goodness knows how many pages of paper I wasted printing them out to compare them. I agree with both noble Lords that we have to look at our House procedures to make sure that this problem is overcome.
I cannot hope to be as persuasive as my noble friends who have spoken, but I wish to direct my remarks to Conservative colleagues who may have a few concerns about supporting these amendments. First, the Government oppose the new clause sent to the other place on the grounds that
“it is not an effective means of dealing with cases of state genocide.”
Okay, so what is an effective means? The Government have not advanced any credible alternative means. All UK Governments, as has been said repeatedly, have hidden behind the excuse that they cannot declare a genocide because only a court can do that. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said it on a couple of occasions, the Foreign Secretary has said it and David Cameron also said it when he was Prime Minister.
Of course, the court they have in mind is the International Criminal Court—but, as we have also heard, the ICC cannot take a case unless it is authorised by a resolution at the United Nations, where Russia and China can exercise their veto. Thus, it seems to me that UK government policy is to rely on a motion approved by Russia or China, which will never happen. We have therefore subcontracted the UK’s morality to two regimes which the new head of MI5, Ken McCallum, says are a threat to the United Kingdom. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, gives the Government a way out, because it asks a UK court to make a preliminary determination on whether genocide has occurred.
Is there anyone in your Lordships’ House who thinks that our United Kingdom courts are less able to do that than the ICC? Indeed, was it not top UK lawyers who prosecuted and adjudicated at Nuremberg and set up the ICC? Are we seriously suggesting that noble and learned Lords, with whom that part of the House is normally awash, or their successors now in the High Court, are incapable, or not as good judges as those in the International Criminal Court? Of course they are—and of course there are technical difficulties in hearing evidence, but the courts are in a better position to do it than any Select Committee. So I believe that the revised amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has removed that principal objection the Government had, that only a court can do it.
The Minister—I pay tribute to him—is a highly intelligent and very able Minister and he has had countless meetings on this. He knows that the brief he has to defend today is utterly illogical. The typical FCDO letter that has been circulated today is incredibly feeble. We all know that the Foreign Office does not want to say “boo” to any evil regime, wherever it may be in the world, whether it is in China, Zimbabwe, Burma/Myanmar, Venezuela or wherever. We have a government policy that only a court can decide on genocide. Then we have an amendment giving our High Court a power to decide on genocide, but the Government says that it is not effective. How illogical is that?
The suggestion that the Government favour a Select Committee making a pronouncement instead is utterly wrong. There is nothing to stop a Select Committee doing that at the moment, but the idea that a Select Committee, meeting for a couple of hours a week, could give the same consideration as the United Kingdom or the English High Court taking evidence day after day, week after week, is for the birds. Of course, no matter what the Select Committee decided, the Government could ignore it on the basis that “It is not a court”.
There is another worry many Conservatives have—I shared it initially—and that is that we cannot have a court determining foreign policy which is rightly the preserve of the Executive. I agree, and I have believed for some time that judicial activism in this country, especially judicial review, has gone too far. That is an argument for another day, but this amendment is quite different from what we debated before, because it does not permit the court to determine government policy. If the court makes a preliminary determination that genocide has been committed, what does the court then do? Absolutely nothing—the court’s work is now done.
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The amendment before us, from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, merely obliges the Government to put down a Motion for debate in both our Houses, setting out what they propose to do. The Government have a completely free hand on what they may propose to do, ranging from doing absolutely nothing at all, to possibly deploring the killings, to some sanctions on individuals or not going ahead with a trade deal—a wide range of options. The political policy decision is 100% with Her Majesty’s Government and I ask my noble friends to agree that this amendment is no threat to the Government’s executive authority and does not intrude the courts into it.
I know there will be some colleagues on the Conservative Benches—indeed, on all sides—who may be concerned that this power would be used and abused by the supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah to try it on with bogus claims against Israel. No doubt they will try stunts like that, but the threshold for proving genocide is extremely high and, in my view, nothing Israel has done has come within a million miles of the definition. But these terrorist groups and their bedfellows will have a go, just as they invoke bogus allegations against Israel now. Also, some Conservative colleagues may be concerned that this is a move against free trade. Yes, it is—but first of all, as I said, it is a very high threshold to prove, and we are not going to have dozens of countries determined by our courts as genocide perpetrators.
Secondly, once the court has made a determination, it will be up to the Government to decide what trade we do with the country concerned, or whether we continue trading at all. Thirdly, genocide must trump unfettered capitalism. Trade is the greatest lever the world has to relieve poverty. The more trade we have, the more freedom from want. The more capitalism we have, the more wealth for all. However, just a United Kingdom Prime Minister said in 1973, there is
“the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/5/1973; col. 1423.]
We still have that today. That was Ted Heath referring to Tiny Rowland hiding some unimportant information from his board. What words would Ted Heath have used to describe a situation where a company or a country was profiting by murdering its own people? Thus I submit that the evil of genocide must take precedence over free trade.
My final point is that this is a moral issue. In July 1995, in the Srebrenica massacre that took place in Bosnia, 8,000 men, women and children were slaughtered. Nearly every country in the world calls it a genocide, but it is not genocide as far as the United Nations is concerned. Why? Because in 2015, I think it was, Russia vetoed a resolution calling it a genocide. Is that the limbo in which the UK Government want to be trapped, when in future we could see thousands or tens of thousands of civilians murdered and massacred and we could do nothing about it, not even call it genocide, because Russia, China, Venezuela or Vietnam —or anyone else on the Security Council—has vetoed it going to the International Criminal Court?
This amendment has nothing to do with Brexit—thank goodness—but taking back control of our laws must mean a bit more than merely rewriting EU rules on square widgets or the meat content of sausages. It must also mean taking a lead on moral issues such as genocide. We are the country that led the way on the abolition of slavery; we should now lead the way in making a very firm statement that we will not tolerate genocide, nor seek to profit from it. And this is not just for the Government. I hope that, over the coming months and years, the media and campaigning organisations will highlight whether we get any goods from countries indulging in genocide and persuade customers to boycott them. I believe in free trade, but there is no God-given right for British consumers to buy T-shirts at £2 a piece if people have been murdered
or forcibly sterilised in their production. I believe that the FCDO is way behind the curve on this. Its attitude is trapped in a past decade. I think the British public is much more aware now and want action on this.
I also appeal to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister to take a close look at this. He has been way ahead of the curve on vaccination. He is way ahead on environmental matters, with which I am concerned, with the 25-year plan, rewilding—there is a whole host of environmental matters where he is ahead of much of the rest of departmental government policy. I am certain that if, in the course of his busy day, he could take a look at what we are suggesting in this House, he too would realise that the old Foreign Office policy on genocide is no longer sustainable. The British people do not want it, this House does not want it, and I am certain that the Commons will not want it when this amendment gets there.
Amendment 3B in the name of my noble friend Lord Alton deserves support from all Conservative colleagues who believe in the executive authority of the Government, believe in free trade, and believe in having a moral foreign trading policy.