Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)

My Lords, I am greatly encouraged to have heard our House speak so powerfully, so eloquently, and with such a united voice about our determination to tackle atrocity crimes in whatever vestige they may come, whether it is outright genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. I was obviously disappointed to hear the final remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury. As he said, he and I want to see the same ends, so I was disappointed to hear him say that he is unable at the present moment to support the Genocide Determination Bill. He has heard the Opposition Front Benches, and I was extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham and to the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for what they had to say and for the support the Bill has been given, particularly by people like the noble Baronesses, Lady Helic and Lady Sugg, in their remarks today. There will be a debate about the Bill on 15 July. We are in continued discussion. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of the Shaws, and I met with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, the Attorney-General. We have questions for the Lord Chancellor, David Lammy, around this and universal jurisdiction. I hope that the conversation will remain open, because we cannot have it both ways. We cannot say, as the Minister did in his last remarks, that we will abide by the determination of a court if we then rule out the opportunity of the High Court of England and Wales and the Court of Session in Scotland being able to do that, which is why my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead, helped to devise the terms of the Bill. I hope that, given that the vetoes that we heard referred to by my noble friend Lord Hannay, will always be used by Russia or China when you seek to refer to a case, such as that of the Uyghur Muslims, or even the United Nations’ own commission of inquiry into North Korea, which called for a referral to the ICC, it has not gone forward because of the threat of the use of veto. My noble friend was right that the United Kingdom should revisit this question, even if it is only to call out the countries that would block such referrals. The French floated this idea some time ago. We should work with them to try and make sure that it is placed before the Security Council—something, I know, that would be close to the heart of the Minister. The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said that we needed clarity, resources and urgency. The point about resources was underlined by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. It takes me back to my student union days, when I argued for Resolution 2626—the United Nations resolution calling for 0.7% of our gross national product to be provided in development aid. The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, has an incredibly honourable record on this. Not many people leave government over a matter of principle. I enormously admire her for putting her beliefs into action in that way. She is right: we must understand what impact this is having on things such as the atrocity prevention strategy. I hope, therefore, that when the letter comes from the Minister that something more can be said about whether this impact of resources will affect capacity and the size of the hub. Many Peers echoed the call for a cross-departmental and cross-government strategy, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, and others. We were told that it is a core question. Many lamented the absence of a national strategy. The scale of the challenge was underlined by the noble Baronesses, Lady Helic and Lady Nye, my noble friend Lady D’Souza, the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, and others. The re-vivification of the conventions was a point that the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, made, and it was echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin were called in aid. I had the privilege of visiting Simele in northern Iraq, which is where Lemkin went in the early 1930s to understand what had happened to the Assyrians and Armenians. It was on that basis that he started to think about crafting something to try and deal with atrocity crimes. More than 40 of his own family members were murdered in the Holocaust. Churchill said that there is no word sufficient in our language to capture the scale, the monstrosity of the crimes that have been committed. Lemkin gave us that word: genocide—the cutting of the human family. In every generation, we owe it to the founding fathers and mothers of that period—from Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Winston Churchill and the many senior figures in the Conservative Party and the Labour Party at that time who promoted the European Convention on Human Rights, on which the noble Lord, Lord Rook, spoke when I had a debate on that subject. It is a great pleasure for me to be able to pass the baton on to the noble Lord, who has more than grown into his own shoes. I am particularly pleased that he has joined us on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, where he is already making quite a mark. In the 1930s, we saw, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, the growth of crimes that nobody responded to in any adequate way. There was insufficient justice or accountability. People were not listening to the survivors and victims. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, gave us a particular case, that of Ryan Evans, who paid the ultimate price in Ukraine for shining a light on the atrocities there. I mentioned in my opening remarks that I heard Kate Adie earlier today at the unveiling of the statue of “Tank Man”, where she said that the protesters in the square in Tiananmen said to her, “Please go and tell the world”. That is what so many of our brave journalists have done down the years. They have gone and told the world, at great risk to their own lives. We surely have to underline, as my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, told us, that atrocities flourish in darkness, and we have to shine a light on those things. The noble Lord, Lord Hussain, said that early warning is useless without early action. The noble Lord, Lord Rook, said that the true test is in implementation. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said that we needed something like the Elie Wiesel Act in our own country. This is the beginning of a conversation. We can continue it, I think, on 17 July, on my Private Member’s Bill. But it is also a conversation to have within your Lordships’ House, perhaps with the special envoy David Smith, the Member of Parliament who has been referred to, with whom I travelled once to India. I have a very high regard for him, but it would be good too to have officials from the FCDO present at a meeting with those who have taken part in this debate, where we can discuss more candidly, and perhaps with one another, some of the issues that I know unite us. I will end by saying that I was particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, was given the task of replying to today’s debate. We have missed his voice often in this House on these issues. No one cares more deeply about them than he does. I am grateful to him and to all the Members of your Lordships’ House who have taken part in today’s debate.