Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)

I thank the Minister for her balanced and nuanced tone on these measures. These measures, unlike the previous measures, give me a bit more concern. I agree with the Minister that we want to see a Syria at peace within its borders and beyond. There should be restraint from neighbouring countries in acting within its sovereign borders. The Minister was absolutely right that there are positive signals, signs and actions. But there are also those which have provided some worry in recent weeks. When we previously debated measures that allowed humanitarian licences to be issued, my party supported them. That is fully justified; the humanitarian situation within Syria remains grave. The Government are to be commended for the humanitarian support that they are providing with our partners. That is especially the case when we are working with local civil society groups, which are working extremely hard. It is the best means by which we can avoid facilitating those who do not share the overall ambitions of the Government for civil rights, human rights and humanitarian needs. This is one area where the structure of doing this through statutory instruments prevents, for example, probing amendments on areas we would like some further clarity on. The Minister referred to the recent attacks on the Druze and the concerns about the restrictions of rights for minorities. The Government were right to condemn these, and the Minister is right to do so. As she alluded to, this is the second set of incidents; it could highlight that these are not isolated incidents. There needs to be action as a result of the fact-finding inquiries to ensure that they are prevented from happening again. The Minister will recall that I separately raised concerns in the Chamber about the work being done on the national curriculum. It seems to be reflecting sectarianism, continuing antisemitism, extremist language and violent content, and erasing women and minorities. This is in clear contradiction to the last bullet point in the Government’s ambitions for Syria, for “the enjoyment of rights and freedoms in Syria without discrimination, including on the basis of a person’s sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion”. The probing amendment I would seek to bring would ask for a report on the implementation of some of the policies and how they interact with the new liberties that the UK is providing, especially for financial services, financial markets and the operation of the private sector at the direction of those who, while they may not be part of the proscribed terrorist organisation, are working with them. The proscription in UK law is not only for the organisation itself, but those that facilitate, finance and support it. The catch-all is quite broad. I would hope that we would also have a report on what the ongoing assessment is on proscription. When will it be the time that there is a view that that proscription should be lifted overall?