Lords Sitting of 29 November 1993

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of St. Albans.

Nuclear Weapons
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they share the view of the US Secretary of Defense that, "If we now had the opportunity to ban all nuclear weapons, we would. That is how profound the change is that we have undergone", and whether they have undergone similar change.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, nuclear weapons cannot be dis-invented. We are, therefore, committed to maintaining a minimum independent nuclear deterrent for as long as it is needed as the ultimate guarantee of this country's security.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the Minister answer the Question? Will he not say whether he will join the American Government, if opportunity arises, to do as the American Secretary of Defense said; that is, "If we now had the opportunity to ban all nuclear weapons, we would. That is how profound the change is that we have undergone"? Have the Government undergone a similar change? If the opportunity arises, will they join the American Government in banning all nuclear weapons?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord stands condemned out of his own mouth. The quotation from the member of the American Government is prefaced by the small and important word "if". I confirm, as I have on many occasions, that it is the ultimate goal of Her Majesty's Government to get rid of all nuclear weapons. That is not a practical proposition at the moment, but we can work towards it.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is it not a fact that many Members of this House, whether pacifist or not, would love to see the time when there is no need for nuclear weapons? Of course we would; everyone would. But the fact is that some countries—for example, Cuba—are trying hard to get nuclear weapons into their possession, and while that remains the position we must stay as we are. It is as simple as that and I do not know why we are having all this fuss.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I am always greatly reassured when I find myself wholly in agreement with the noble Lord. I have nothing to add to what he said.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, does the Minister agree that when the representative of Her Majesty's Government goes to the non-proliferation
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treaty extension conference in 1995 this is the kind of question that will be asked? Why are the Government refusing to contemplate becoming involved in disarmament negotiations? Why are they planning an increase in strategic warhead numbers between Polaris and Trident from 48 to 96 now that the Cold War has ended? That is the question that will be asked, because both policies contradict the United Kingdom's obligations under Article 6 of the non-proliferation treaty.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I expected rather better from the noble Lord. He knows that the Government have announced that the explosive power contained in the Trident deterrent will not in general terms exceed the explosive power contained in Polaris, and therefore there is no increase. The noble Lord also knows that we are committed, and have been committed publicly, to working towards a comprehensive test-ban treaty. Indeed, I made that announcement in your Lordships' House last Monday. When in 1995 the time comes for extending the non-proliferation treaty we intend to play our full part. There is nothing new in my saying that and I am sorry that when I do so the noble Lord believes that I am saying something new.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the Minister try not to be so patronising? Does he accept that only recently the Government have accepted that there should be a comprehensive test-ban treaty? Up until that time the Government had refused that. In expecting better from me, will the noble Viscount ask himself whether we should not expect better from him?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I am extremely flattered that the noble Lord feels that I am capable of thinking of being able to patronise him. As always, we shall play our part to the best of our ability towards international disarmament. I have given specific examples of how we intend to do that.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, to some degree is not the Answer to the Question dependent upon the setting up of worldwide effective verification procedures?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, yes; I am grateful to my noble friend. That is absolutely crucial. When in 1995 we come to the negotiations attendant upon the extension of the non-proliferation treaty that will be absolutely crucial to the negotiating posture of Her Majesty's Government.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that many of us were extremely interested in the reply which he gave to my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel; namely, that although the number of warheads has been increased, the explosive power has been reduced? What does that mean in policy terms? Does it mean that the British Government now intend to have a greater number of targets? Is that what is implied? It seems to me that nothing else can be implied. If that is so, is that a good policy?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I should make it clear to the noble Lord that the figure of 96 is very much

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a maximum. The noble Lord knows that we have never commented on targeting matters, and we shall not begin to do so now.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that the Government have been criticised for their foot-dragging, as it has been described, on this issue, not only from these Benches but also in the American Congress? In view of that, will he not look again at this question? If the Government cannot be in the lead in getting rid of nuclear weapons—to which they are committed in theory—will they at least ensure that they will not be the last country to give up nuclear weapons?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I fear that the noble Lord and I, in spite of the very great respect I have for his views, start from completely opposite directions in our consideration of nuclear policy. Her Majesty's Government feel that it is the ultimate guarantee of British security. Therefore, if we are to change the level of nuclear weapons or the philosophy with which we approach nuclear policy, it is incumbent upon us, given our fundamental view, to make sure that any change is undertaken with due care and deliberation, because nothing less than the security of the nation is at stake.

The Disabled: Employment
2.45 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke Lord Ashley of Stoke asked Her Majesty's Government:
What representations they have received from disability organisations about their proposals for the employment of disabled people entitled Access to Work.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, disability organisations have given a general welcome to Access to Work, which will help more disabled people in a much wider range of ways, while expressing concerns about the proposal for employers to make limited contributions to help their own established employees and, to some extent, about the proposal for a limit on an individual's entitlement to help in a five-year period.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, is the Minister aware that if anyone were so perverse as to wish to increase the unemployment of disabled people, one of the most effective ways in which to do that would be to force employers to pay 50 per cent. of the costs of special equipment for disabled employees? Why are the Government doing that?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that our aim is exactly the same as his; that is, to increase provision for disabled people. We believe that Access to Work, which has been broadly welcomed, will make available much more provision for many more people with disabilities.
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I accept that there has been anxiety about employers' contributions. That is why they will be only 50 per cent., up to a certain ceiling. That ceiling has not yet been announced and we shall certainly listen to all representations from the noble Lord and others as regards where that ceiling should be set. Certainly I wish to make it clear that I should not like that ceiling to be set at a level which would discourage employers from retaining their established employees. I must stress that employers' contributions apply only to existing employees. New employees will not be affected at all.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that there are many forms of disablement and that there are many specialist organisations which are trying to help disabled people? All that such organisations feel is that they should be given acknowledgement, encouragement and the opportunity to show that almost every disabled person can do some form of work which can be to the benefit of that person and his family and, indeed, to the country.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord and I are totally at one. Access to Work is really only to help people with particular special needs. A great many disabled people have no particular need for any help from the Government in the form of Access to Work. My department, through its various agencies, will certainly be glad to offer any help and advice that is needed.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Spastics Society, for example, is one organisation that has asked for comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation as regards disabled people? Would that not be a better approach, rather than the more piecemeal approach that we have seen recently?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I believe that anti-discrimination legislation is another question, but it is one on which we have made our views clear on a number of occasions. We believe that Access to Work will provide a great deal of extra help for many people with disabilities, and it will certainly be an improvement on the rather scarce and varied schemes which we have at present.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that only 50 per cent. of employers responded to the department's research and less than 40 per cent. said that they were willing to pay more? That leaves a very large number of employers who are not prepared to pay the extra costs of disabled people and, consequently, that unemployment of disabled people is bound to rise. There is no point in the Minister speaking of Access to Work when many thousands will be denied access to work and a job unless that particular aspect of the policy is changed.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not believe that the research shows that to be so. We believe that it shows that employers are prepared to pay something to keep on existing employees. There is a perfectly good business case for paying a little—and I must stress that it will only be a small amount—to retain an employee that one already employs. After all, that saves the cost of

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recruiting and training a new employee. I must make clear that, as regards employers having to pay, the proposals will not apply to new employees. Therefore, in no way whatever can one say that they are a disincentive to employers taking on new disabled employees.

Legislation: Drafting
2.50 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth Viscount Hanworth asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they support the European Communities' Council resolution of 8th June 1993 on the quality of drafting of Community legislation; and if so, what steps they are taking to improve the drafting of United Kingdom legislation?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, we strongly supported the Council resolution. It was our initiative at the Edinburgh European Council to make new Community legislation clearer and simpler. The Community initiative has no direct relevance to UK legislative drafting. However, we expect to produce guidance on the implementation of EC laws in the UK to avoid imposing unnecessary burdens on business.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, is it not now the time to do something about our own failure to produce better drafting of legislation within the many areas of the Civil Service? Surely, we now have an opportunity to do just that.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. I hope that the 10 guidelines which have been developed for European legislation will also apply to British legislation. It seems to me to be extremely sensible to have wording which is clear, simple, concise and unambiguous—for example, unnecessary abbreviations, Community jargon and excessively long sentences should be avoided; indeed, for Community, one could add government. It is also a very good lesson for us to learn.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I hope my noble friend the Minister will accept my warm congratulations on the wisdom that she has shown in avoiding becoming too involved in the murky subject of UK legislation. Further, will she accept the very simple proposition that increases in volume are likely to be followed and reflected by a definite degradation in quality?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, bearing in mind some of the activities in the House during recent months, I fear that my noble friend may have set me a trap in his language. Nevertheless, I shall try to answer him honestly. Volume and quality do not always go together; but sometimes we have to have volume for sensible reasons, and then it must be our job to ensure that we also have maximum quality.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, while English legislation (or British legislation), as produced, tends to have its defects from time to time—indeed, they form the subject of many debates in the House—perhaps I may ask this question. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that she fully endorses the remarks of the Prime Minister on the subject when he described much of European legislation as a lot of "waffle"? Anyone in your Lordships' House can verify that fact by looking through the official journals of the European Community which reproduce the legislation and which, in every case, contain at least three preambles and about 20 recitals prior to the actual wording of the regulation.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I believe it is fair to say that waffle is not restricted to legislation; it sometimes happens in both this and another place.
Lord Richard: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the problem of drafting of legislation in this country is something which has, to my knowledge, been considered for at least 30 years and which, I assume, was considered for a long time before? Is she also aware that every government says that it wants to do something about it but that no government actually succeeds in doing so? Will the Minister recognise that, in some ways, one of the keys to the problem may be that in Britain we insist that our parliamentary draftsmen cover just about very eventuality that it is possible for the ingenuity of the human mind to encompass? However, on the whole, in continental systems of justice there is a tendency to legislate more in terms of principles and rather less in terms of detail. Will the Government move down that path or will they stay where they are?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it is a difficult matter. I can well remember some 12 years ago being involved in the presenting of a Bill in another place on social security legislation. Everything that we tried to do in general terms, the Opposition of the day wished to put in in specific terms. Therefore, we ended up with the specificity in the legislation which we had really sought to avoid. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Richard; but the scrutiny team that looked at the EC legislation found little evidence to support the allegation that we deliberately added to the requirements on EC law. However, we have existing national legislation with a far wider scope and tougher penalties than other member states. That is the essential problem that we must set about tackling if we are to simplify our own UK law as well as EC law.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, as regards the guidance that the Government are to give to officials about EC legislation, can the Minister say whether it will include an instruction not to add to and build upon the legislation which has come from the EC? Further, is the noble Baroness aware that because of the building upon EC legislation, many businessmen and farmers have been put out of business, while many other kinds of businesses have been very badly hurt?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, having spent 14 years in business before I entered the political arena, I always reckoned that it was very easy to blame

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the Government when things went wrong in business, in the same way as governments sometimes look for other scapegoats, and they should not do so. One has to make legislation clear in order to ensure that it covers the principles, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and to make sure that we do not pressurise business to accept unnecessary burdens. That is why in the overhaul of the whole approach we have had an advisory steering group looking at the scrutiny report which included businessmen. We want their needs to be reflected in the legislative drafting for the future.

EC Preliminary Draft Budget 1994
2.57 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's Government:
On which dates was the European Community's preliminary draft budget for 1994 (Vols. 0 and 1 to 6 inclusive), or such of its contents as were communicated to them by the United Kingdom Permanent Representative of the Community prior to its publication, reviewed by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on European Questions (OPD(E)) prior to the Economic and Financial Council's establishment of the Community's draft budget on 22nd July 1993, and with what results.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the Government considered the preliminary draft budget of the European Communities for 1994 in the weeks leading up to 15th July, when the Paymaster General submitted an explanatory memorandum to Parliament. The explanatory memorandum set out the Government's broad objectives, which were secured at the Budget Council on 22nd July.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that he has not answered the Question on the Order Paper, which was the same as the question contained in the second part of a Question that I tabled on 28th October? I asked when the "preliminary draft budget" was considered by,
"the Cabinet Sub-Committee on European Questions (OPD(E))".—[Official Report, 28/10/93; col. 929.]
There ought to be an answer to the question: either it was not considered or it was. If it was, I should like to know when. That is the simple purpose of the question, and it has still not been answered. The noble Lord cannot get away with such Answers. When the Minister answers the Question again—as I trust he will—will he agree that there is much evidence to show that the £2.5 billion net subscription that the United Kingdom makes to the EC usually goes through on the nod by the British Government, without being considered in detail? If the noble Lord will look at the proceedings of Parliament over the past five years, he will see that that fact can easily be verified.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I gave the same Answer to the noble Lord as my noble friend Lord Caithness gave him a month ago quite simply because he asked exactly the same Question. The noble Lord expressed his
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gratitude to my noble friend for his reply on that occasion. Therefore, I see nothing wrong in repeating the Answer. As the noble Lord is aware, it is a perfectly well-known and long-standing convention that the Government do not give details of discussions between Ministers that precede the formulation of government policy.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, but the noble Lord's right honourable friend the Prime Minister has enunciated the principle of more open government and indeed to that end has published a detailed list of ministerial responsibilities and of the composition and function of ministerial sub-committees. Why should he now seek refuge behind the ambiguities which the noble Lord, or rather his predecessor, inflicted on me on 28th October and is inflicting on me again today? Did this sub-committee consider this matter or not? What consideration of security is involved in that other than the petty conceit of not wishing to reply to a Question?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord is perfectly correct. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister published a list of the committees and sub-committees of Parliament and I could, if the noble Lord wishes, detail all the members of (OPD(E)) but, as I said earlier, it is a long-standing convention that we do not give details of discussions between Ministers and we believe that this confidentiality is necessary to ensure that all policy options can be considered fully and frankly.
Lord Morris: My Lords, the noble Lord opposite is not asking for details of the discussions: he is asking whether the discussions were held and when.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I simply cannot take my noble friend any further than I have taken the noble Lord opposite. The answer I have given is that we do not discuss the discussions between Ministers and their officials or between Ministers because it makes it far harder to formulate policy. I stick by that
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, in the Government's scrutiny of the Community budget, careful or otherwise, have the Government noticed that that budget happens to be balanced? Does the noble Lord agree that his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has some important budgetary lessons to learn from M. Delors?
Lord Henley: My Lords, that is another question and the noble Lord can wait for the Budget tomorrow.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord at least give the House an assurance, particularly in the light of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's observation that he had never read the Maastricht Treaty before he agreed with it, that he has read the Community budget?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord that assurance.

Business
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Arran will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on messages between the IRA and Her Majesty's Government.

Ministerial and other Salaries Order 1993
3.2 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham)The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 2nd November be approved [41st Report from the Joint Committee 1992–93].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is two years since this order was last debated by your Lordships' House. Last year, as your Lordships will recall, Ministers—and the others affected by the order, including the noble Lords the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip—agreed to freeze their pay following the introduction of public sector pay restraint. The proposals before us today take account of this. The proposals are quite complicated in some respects and I will need to explain the context in describing them here today.
The proposals reflect two important new principles. The first is the Government's intention that, in another place, Ministers and others covered by the Ministerial and other Salaries Order should henceforth normally receive the same percentage increases in respect of their ministerial salaries as do Members of Parliament in respect of their salaries. However, as your Lordships will be aware, Ministers and office holders in another place are also paid a parliamentary salary at a reduced rate. Accordingly, the second new principle is that Ministers and office holders in this House should normally receive the same overall cash increase as their counterparts in the other place, taking account of their combined ministerial and reduced parliamentary salaries.
It is therefore necessary to look at the pay increases that have been agreed for Members of Parliament. The resolution voted by Members of the other place on 3rd November provided for a staged increase. The first stage is 2.7 per cent. payable from 1st January 1994 and the second stage is a further 2.68 per cent. payable from 1st January 1995. The overall amount reflects the increases that have been received by specified grades of civil servants over the past two years, including the year of pay restraint when settlements were held to 1.5 per cent. but when Members of Parliament and office holders received nothing. The resolution also establishes a link (replacing a previous link) with pay settlements for Grades 5 to 7 in the Civil Service as the basis for increases in future. It is accordingly proposed that the same staged percentage increases should apply to the salaries of Ministers and other office holders in another place and that Ministers and office holders in this House should receive a similarly staged increase reflecting the cash value of the increases received by their counterparts in the other place.
In a Written Answer which I gave to the House on 25th November I set out in detail all the changes which we are proposing to the salaries of Ministers and paid office holders in this House and in the other place. The increases involve an increase in the overall pay bill for both Houses of £102,692 in 1994. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 2nd November be approved [41st Report from the Joint Committee 1992–93].—(Lord Wakeham.)
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, we on these Benches are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for having taken the trouble to go into this matter in a little more detail to explain the intricacies and the problems of it. He, I and many others in this House served in another place and for many years we have been bedevilled by the inability of parliamentarians to determine their own salary and by the criticisms they have received. The noble Lord the Leader of the House was quite right to point out that a formula was finally arrived at some years ago. As the noble Lord the Leader of the House also pointed out, some two years ago we accepted a pay freeze. That freeze was not part of a formula but was a self-denying ordinance by parliamentarians, Ministers and office holders. I do not believe, frankly, that we shall ever be completely free of criticism, whatever is done in this field. We on this side of the House recognise that the Government, as endorsed by another place, have tried their level best to be fair not merely to their economic policy but also to the Ministers and parliamentarians who are affected by these matters. We on this side of the House take a benign view of what the Minister said. However, the noble Lords the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip are grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, we on these Benches also wish to thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for the announcement he has just made. We, of course, have no pecuniary interest in this matter whatsoever as neither the Leader nor the Whip on our Benches are paid anything at all. This is not an example of the adage that where one pays peanuts one gets monkeys. Long ago when I was a member of the Top Salaries Review Body we discussed this matter at considerable length. I still regret the fact that the pay of parliamentarians has been linked to that of the Civil Service as there is no relationship whatsoever between the two professions. The job of a parliamentarian is sui generis if any job ever was. Speaking personally I have always believed that that linking was a mistake as it means that the pay of parliamentarians is the result of trade union negotiation. I do not believe that that is at all appropriate.
However, I am glad that the noble Lord the Leader of the House stressed the fact that last year no parliamentarians or Ministers received any increase whatever. That is a point the media might note when they comment, as they did so unfavourably, on the fact that parliamentarians had accepted an increase in pay this year. I am glad the noble Lord the Leader of the House pointed that out and one hopes that the media will also notice it.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, the White Paper shows how low is the remuneration of Ministers, particularly junior Ministers, in this House. As my noble friend made clear, Ministers in another place also receive a parliamentary salary in addition to the figures given in the White Paper. But, of course, they do not do so in this House and I think many of us have found that particularly junior Ministers in this House—they are generally fairly youthful and at a stage in their lives when they experience rising expenses—are paid at a low level. I believe that one or two resignations of junior Ministers have been not altogether unconnected with that.
I hope therefore that when further consideration is given to this matter of ministerial salaries in this House—I trust my noble friend does not mind my reminding him of the salaries of junior Ministers again—the Government will consider awarding a fairly substantial increase in order to secure that those who serve this House and the Government as Ministers, particularly as junior Ministers, will be properly remunerated. It is certainly my impression that they are not fully remunerated at present.
I also ask my noble friend to answer a question which puzzles me a little. Under Part III of the order it appears that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate is paid £9,000 a year more than the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General for Scotland is paid a similar amount more than the Solicitor-General. I am sure that there is an explanation, but simply looking at the White Paper that is a little surprising.
Lord Elton: My Lords, am I right in thinking that my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter was right in one respect; namely, that Ministers in this House are disproportionately hard done by compared with Ministers in another place, and wrong in another respect in that I understood my noble friend to say that that was about to be rectified? If that is the case, it is a very important statement. A great many of your Lordships have served under a disadvantage for many years. That disadvantage continues in their pension rights when they retire. Therefore, those of us who have been through this mill will heartily applaud the decision of Her Majesty's Government to see that this House is treated fairly.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening statement. Perhaps I may ask him en passant whether it is his intention in the near future to tell the House about the new allocations of the money for opposition parties known as the Short money.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, undoubtedly these salaries will be commented upon by the press and others—perhaps unfavourably. I should like to draw attention to the fact that we pay the Prime Minister of this country £54,400 a year. Are noble Lords aware that the chief executive of my local authority is paid more than that? Indeed, the chief executives of many smaller authorities receive more than that. It is about time that we started looking at Ministers' salaries, particularly that of the Prime Minister, because in some minds the
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value of the job (but not necessarily of the person) is reflected in the salary which is paid for that job. I urge the noble Lord the Leader of the House to take into account what I have said and the fact that the chief executive of a comparatively small local authority is paid some £6,000 per year more than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in following up the point made by my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon, as an ordinary Back-Bencher perhaps I may bestow my congratulations on the continuing coalition between the Government and the Opposition on this matter. I respectfully draw attention to the fact that, taking the remuneration of members of the Government and of certain members of the Opposition together with the legitimate allowances to which they are entitled in the United Kingdom in respect of expenses, the total remuneration of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is still less than that of a European Member of Parliament who has much less responsibility.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, matters have improved a little since I first went to another place in 1962, when my salary was £1,750. As there was no help with secretarial or other expenses, out of that £1,750 I paid £750 immediately to my secretary and a large additional sum for postage, telephone, stationery and so on. We have moved on a little since then, but not a great deal.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, made a comparison with the chief executive of a local authority. I returned from Washington last week where I visited the offices of Congressmen who employ 18 or 20 staff. The staff are paid for out of public revenue. I do not suggest that we go to those extremes. However, I believe that we still give legislators inadequate resources to do their jobs and to ensure that the actions of the Government are properly scrutinised and to do so on the basis of adequate knowledge. That means that they have to have the necessary back-up as well as the salaries that we are talking about today. I do not believe that we have yet reached the stage, particularly in this House, where that fact is recognised. No one in this House is entitled to assistance in order to employ secretarial assistance or research workers. To say that we are able to do so out of the miserable £30 a day which is allocated for such purposes is ridiculous. If one attended every single day when the House sits—which might be 150 days a year—then the total amount one is allocated for research and secretarial assistance would be £4,500. One could not employ a fourth of a worker for that amount of money.
This is a modest step in the right direction. The media, which are often quick to jump on increases paid to Members of either House, should be wary of criticising if they want the job to be done properly. If they do not want an effective parliament, then we should not give legislators any money, either in the form of remuneration or research assistance. But if the media want Parliament to scrutinise the actions of the executive effectively, they have to give us the tools to do the job.

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It is a pity that last year salaries were frozen because that means that there is a certain amount of catching up to do. I cannot see how even the most niggardly taxpayer could take issue with the figures mentioned by the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal—2.7 per cent. on 1st January 1994, and 2.68 per cent. on 1st January 1995.
The noble Lord mentioned that salaries are to be tied to Grades 5 to 7 in the Civil Service, which do not sound all that wonderful to me. Perhaps in his winding-up speech the noble Lord will say what sort of work is done by grades 5 to 7 of the Civil Service. I cannot believe that it could be a more responsible job than that of a Member of Parliament in either House.
This order is not an extravagant one. It does not commit the taxpayer to a great deal of additional expenditure which is not in the interests of the country. I hope that in taking note of what is being done today, the newspapers, radio and television, will have more sense than to say that a bad example is being set by this House.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, perhaps I may start by commenting on what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said. He is right in several respects. He is certainly right in saying that the situation is a great deal better than it was several years ago.
With regard to allowances in another place for secretarial and research assistance, the amounts are higher than those which the Government recommended to the other place. Therefore I say that they are at least as generous as they should be if not more adequate than they should be. Nevertheless, I agree with what the noble Lord said about there being proper arrangements.
The parliamentary salary is equivalent to that of the Principal grade or Higher Executive Officer in the Civil Service. Those grades do responsible and important work; but, as has been implied, they are not the highest level of official with which we often have to deal. One of my late friends in the other place always used to reckon that when he spoke to the fifth senior person in the county architect's department in his constituency he was speaking to someone of his own level because they received roughly the same level of salary. That gives some indication of the position.
I am grateful to the noble Lord the Opposition Chief Whip and to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for what they said. The noble Baroness served on the Top Salaries Review Body—now I believe called the Senior Salaries Review Body. It was I who negotiated the original linkage in the House of Commons. The noble Baroness is right in this respect. It was not because it was the best way of doing it, but, frankly, it was the only way in which we could obtain reasonable increases for Members of Parliament because the right moment never seemed to arrive at which to make the level of increases that I am sure the noble Baroness would have recommended in her days with the Top Salaries Review Body.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked a question about the Law Officers. The explanation is straightforward. The Solicitor-General and Attorney-General in another place receive two-thirds of their parliamentary salaries which are not part of this order.
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The Lord Advocate, being a Member of this House, and the Solicitor-General for Scotland, not being a Member of Parliament, receive their total salaries as shown in the order. The Solicitor-General and Attorney-General also receive two-thirds of a Member of Parliament's salary in the House of Commons because they have constituency responsibilities.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, what happens when the Scottish Law Officers are in the House of Commons, as they sometimes are? Would they receive: the figure in the order or a reduced figure?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I believe that they will receive a reduced figure.
The noble Lord, Lord Cocks, asked me about the Short money. I thought that, that issue had been settled. It is normally approved in another place in a debate. However, I shall need to check whether or not the debate has taken place.
I should add this. I had expected someone to raise this issue; it is not part of the order. There is outstanding the question of your Lordships' allowances which have not yet been agreed. That is because of the change in the salary structures and the allowances in the Civil Service. There has been some delay in getting the matter right. As your Lordships will quickly remind me even if I had forgotten myself, those allowances are backdated to 1st August as soon as they are agreed. I apologise for that delay.
Finally, perhaps I may say this to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. It was not a coalition decision. The Government take full responsibility for what they do. I am grateful that the Opposition agree, but they are not responsible for the decision; it is the Government's decision.
Lord Elton: My Lords, will the disparity—it is a real hardship to junior Ministers in this House—be removed?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I apologise; my noble friend raised that point. As I sought to explain in my few remarks, the position is that there will now be the same cash increase to Lords' Ministers as their Commons equivalents receive, including the parliamentary increase. Thus, the disparity in cash terms will remain but it will not widen. Over the years it will become a percentage-less increase. Therefore, we have made a significant move because while there were percentage increases across the board the cash disparity became wider. The cash disparity will now remain the same.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, will he deal with the point that he did not wholly answer. Junior Ministers in this House are paid a very modest rate. Are the Government paying some attention to that factor?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I recognise the truth of what my friend says. Junior Ministers in the House of Lords in particular make a sacrifice to undertake the work. However, they know that when they undertake to do the work. The Government recognise that that is the position. It was in part recognition of that factor that the Government agreed to the change which was included in

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the order. In future, the disparity will not be any wider. The moment for making major changes will arise, but it is not on the immediate horizon.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Kurdish Minority in Turkey
3.24 p.m.
Lord Avebury Lord Avebury rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy on the protection of the Kurdish minority in Turkey.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, perhaps I may first explain why this House and the Government have responsibility towards the minority of Kurds in Turkey. At the Moscow meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE —the continuing dialogue on human rights between all the states of Europe, east and west—the participants including Turkey agreed unanimously that,
"They categorically and irrevocably declare that the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the CSCE are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concerned".
Therefore what happens to minorities anywhere in the CSCE region, and to the Kurds in Turkey in particular, is a matter for the UK Government. We have more of a locus to intervene on the plight of the Kurds in Europe than elsewhere in the region. At the CSCE's Warsaw meeting in September, the head of the human rights unit of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office expressed our anxiety about the persecution of the Kurds and the denial of their collective identity. I should like to thank the human rights section of the Foreign Office for the work that they are doing. I believe that it proves the wisdom of the change that was made not so long ago in setting up a separate human rights division to bring expertise to bear on the problems within the Foreign Office.
There are 14 million Kurds in Turkey, compared with 7 million in Iran, 4 million in Iraq, 1.5 million in Syria, 0.5 million in the former Soviet Union and no fewer than 1 million in exile, making a total of about 28 million. Your Lordships will understand that about half the Kurdish population of the world lives in Turkey, and of those, just under half—let us say 6 million—live in the south-east region of the country where they are in the majority of between 75 per cent. and 95 per cent. in the 13 provinces which are subject to emergency rule. The Kurds are the largest body of people in the world who do not have a country of their own.
Since 1984, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has been waging an armed struggle to liberate the Turkish Kurds from political control by Ankara. They want a Kurdish state, first in the Kurdish part of Turkey, but ultimately extending to the Kurdish areas of Iran, Iraq and Syria. That was promised to the Kurds by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918, and by the British and French Governments in a statement made on 7th November 1918, four days before the Armistice. It is of course the right of the Kurds to govern their own affairs,
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as declared by the United Nations in Article 1 of the International Covenants on Civil and Political, and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The United Nations General Assembly has recognised the legitimacy of the armed struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination; for example, in Article 7 of Resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14th December 1974. The General Assembly has further explicitly affirmed the distinction between international terrorism and the armed struggles against colonial and alien domination in Resolution 32/147 of 16th December 1977. Conflicts of this nature are also recognised in Article 1, paragraph 4, of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It is therefore incorrect for the Foreign Office, and indeed the State Department in the United States, to regard the PKK as merely a terrorist organisation. In the absence of an internationally agreed definition of what constitutes a people within the meaning of the covenants, the claim by the Kurds to exercise the right of self-determination cannot be established legally. However, they possess all the attributes of a people—language, culture, history and institutions—and they clearly wish to be independent. The majority of the Kurds undoubtedly support the PKK, as the Parliamentary Human Rights Group found in three visits to the region over the past 18 months. That is not necessarily because people share the Marxist ideology of the PKK or look with favour on the attacks that it mounts on non-combatants. They see the PKK as the only means of achieving their liberation from Turkish oppression.
Britain's position is that self-determination, although a legal right under international law, is not governed by precise legal principles and we therefore apply state practice as the key issue—that is, the circumstances in which the right has been supported or denied by other states. In the cases of Bangladesh and Eritrea, the international community ultimately supported the people once they had achieved military victory against the dominating power. The policy that we have adopted therefore encourages peoples to use armed force, knowing that claims asserted by constitutional means will never be recognised. Would the Government be prepared to consider attempts to develop mechanisms for examining claims for self-determination within the UN system so that cases such as that of the Kurds might at least get a hearing? In the past, when this has been put to Ministers they have asked why states, which acceded to the UN Charter because of the provisions that it contained about territorial integrity, would agree to a proposal which threatened that principle. One answer could be that any hearing on a claim to self-determination might be conditional on a formal agreement to a cease-fire by the armed opposition group in question.
The Kurds resorted to armed struggle not only because of the attitude of the international community but also because they came up against the brick wall of the ideology of the Kemalist state. The constitution of Turkey declares the indivisible integrity of the Turkish state, its territory and nation. This is reflected in Article 125 of the penal code, which provides that any person who carries out any action intended to destroy the unity

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of the Turkish state suffers a mandatory death penalty. The anti-terror law, which is really an anti-freedom of speech law, prohibits any kind of action aimed at changing the characteristics of the republic, damaging the indivisible unity of the state, on penalty of five years' imprisonment.
Many cases are brought under these provisions against people engaged in what we would regard as perfectly normal political activity. Helsinki Watch, for instance, has documented the legal constraints on freedom of expression. It has also described the murders of journalists, frivolous arrests, harassment and assaults on people engaged in producing and disseminating Kurdish newspapers. Even the newsboys are not immune. One 12 year-old who sold the paper Özgur Gündem was killed by a gunman in the street outside his home as his mother looked on. During our last visit to the region in October, the honourable Member for Woolwich and I interviewed three other boys who had been very severely wounded when assailants, using meat cleavers, had chopped at their heads, shoulders, arms and backs.
The Members of Parliament who represent constituencies in the Kurdish region are under threat both legally and physically. Mehmet Sincar, MP, was shot dead in broad daylight on the street in Batman on 4th September, after 18 of the MPs had formally complained to the Inter-Parliamentary Union about death threats which had been made against them. In the same attack, Metin Özdemir, chairman of the Democracy Party in Batman, was also murdered and four other people were injured. When Leyla Zana, MP, went to pay her condolences to Mr. Sincar's family in Kiziltepe, she narrowly escaped death when she was in the house and a bomb was thrown at it and six people were injured. When we were in the region in October, the army burned down the house, in the village of Zengok, belonging. to Sirro Sakik, the Member of Parliament for Mus, with all its contents, and destroyed the harvest. His sister, brother and stepmother had fled into the forest and he had had no news of them for two days.
When Mrs. Ciller came into office as Prime Minister, she started with conciliatory words. On 30th June, in a speech which she made to the Turkish Parliament, she spoke of ending the state of emergency, ending the hated village guard system which forces Kurds to act as auxiliaries for the Turkish army, of the possibility of introducing Kurdish language radio and TV, of allowing Kurdish language mother tongue education—which does not exist in the region at the moment—and of producing an economic development plan for the region.
None of that has been done and no steps have been taken even towards producing legislation to implement those promises which she made. One has to conclude that. Mrs. Ciller is not really in charge. She heads a weak coalition, and she faces a possible challenge for the leadership of her party. But even if her position were far more secure in political terms, she would still not exercise control over the military in the Kurdish region. They are accountable to no civilian authority and the crimes that they commit against the people are not dealt
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with by any court of law. They enjoy absolute immunity for the crimes that are committed and no official or member of the armed forces is ever arrested or charged with the attacks on civilians.
The armed challenge by the PKK has been met by a vicious campaign of indiscriminate violence against the people of the region as a whole. Villages and towns are bombarded with heavy weaponry, including German "panzers" mounting 47 millimetre cannon and by helicopters supplied by the United States, using cannon and mortar bombs which rain destruction on the people in the villages. Hundreds of villages have been cleared of all their inhabitants and put to the torch, with all their property. Unarmed men, women and children have been killed on the streets and burned to death in their houses, and thousands more have been injured.
The village of Lice, for example, was bombarded on 22nd October, killing an estimated 15 people and causing enormous damage to civilian property. Exact figures are not available for casualties because the village was sealed off from the outside world for a week after the attack. Even now, we have not received any definitive report from the local people. Over the past weekend a trade union delegation which sought to visit another village and film the results of its bombardment was arrested and detained by the Turkish military. That was the village of Biriki, which was visited by some members of the delegation of April 1992, of which I was a member, including Michael Feeney, Cardinal Hume's adviser on refugee affairs. Mr. Feeney and others witnessed the disinterment of the severely mutilated bodies of three men who had been dumped in an unmarked grave by the security forces. It was alleged by the local people that the men had been extrajudicially killed by roping them to armoured vehicles and dragging them along the ground.
The PKK also kill unarmed civilians, though sometimes the Turkish propaganda machine attempts to portray attacks on the village guards—a quisling militia recruited by the army—as attacks on non-combatants. Some of the attacks on village guards have resulted in the deaths of innocent women and children belonging to their families, however, and it is necessary to consider what steps can be taken to ensure that both sides in this vicious conflict adhere to the laws of war.
Unfortunately, Turkey has not signed Protocols 1 and 2 of the Geneva Conventions, one of which has to apply to this conflict, and it should be pressed to do so. In the meanwhile, both sides should be reminded of their obligations under common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which provides that:
"persons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely".
In particular, the conventions prohibit:
"violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture … taking of hostages … outrages upon personal dignity … executions without previous judgement".
Article 3 does not expressly prohibit attacks on civilian populations in non-international armed conflicts, but customary law does. The UN General Assembly recognised the customary principle of civilian immunity, and the complementary principle that warring parties are required to distinguish civilians from

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combatants at all times in Resolution 2444 of December 1969. These principles are violated by the Turkish armed forces every day and by the PKK occasionally.
The Turkish authorities refer to individuals who are working for Kurdish rights as though they were equivalent to armed members of the PKK. It is clear from the Geneva Convention definitions that the term "civilians" includes all the peaceable population and even those who take part in hostilities without combatant status. An individual only forfeits his immunity from direct attack when he is actually taking part in hostilities. If he shares the views and objectives of the combatants, but does not himself bear arms, he is a civilian and there can be no valid excuse for imposing penalties on him without due process. In particular, the murders of MPs, journalists, local party officials and human rights activists, which are organised by the state, should be condemned. In the absence of domestic remedies for the families of the victims a thorough investigation of the killings should be made by the UN Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Mr. Bacre Waly Ndiaye. I ask the noble Baroness whether the Government will support a request to the Government of Turkey to allow him to visit the Kurdish region for that purpose.
The International Committee of the Red Cross may offer its services to the parties to any conflict, and I believe that it may have done so in this instance without success. Will the Government press the Government of Turkey and the PKK to accept the good offices of the Red Cross, not only to stop the escalating violence against civilians, but also to examine the urgent need for humanitarian relief to the tens of thousands of non-combatants who have been burnt out of their homes and in some cases have been left without shelter or food in sub-zero temperatures?
We have a special obligation towards the Kurds of Turkey, because of our predominant role in the region in the early 1920s and because we have pledged our faith to the self-determination of the Kurdish people. We have a general obligation to them as members of the CSCE and the Council of Europe. We have an interest in the promotion of democracy and good government in Turkey, as a role model for the region as well as for the republics of the former Soviet central Asia region. All those factors, and our concern for human rights, point decisively to the need for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish people on lines that will be acceptable to the Kurdish people. If Israel and the Palestinians can reach agreement on the first steps towards solving their problems, then surely Turkey and the Kurds can do the same. But for a peace process to succeed in Kurdistan it will take as much international diplomatic effort as it took in Palestine. I hope that in that process Britain will take the lead.
3.41 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, I express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for bringing forward this Question at this particularly topical moment for the Kurds in Turkey. The debate is,
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in effect, about the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. I shall not follow the line of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on the rights and wrongs of the struggle between the Turkish Government and the PKK. I am not competent to do so. I am concerned, particularly at this time, with the role of what the noble Lord rightly called the suffering of the non-combatants.
The Turkish Government have intimated that they intend to demolish some 900 Kurdish villages bordering the area of Iraq and Iran, which is the Kurdish area, with the main intention, presumably, of frustrating the efforts of the PKK itself. I shall give a couple of instances. On 10th November, 950 Kurds were forcibly evicted from the village of Kursunlu. As usual, there were widespread allegations of torture, and there was a great deal of intimidation and suffering. Just a week ago, over the two days of 20th and 21st November, more than 200 people were evicted by the Turkish army from the village of Hassana. If the government carry out evictions in what they consider to be a lawful struggle against the PKK, surely they should provide food, shelter, accommodation and support for those evicted. But I understand that that is not the case.
Certainly, the formal procedures of the Turkish Government include compensation and alternative settlement for those evicted. But that does not happen in practice. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, spoke about the role of the army. That role is certainly reminiscent, in my experience, of the position in other countries. For instance, some years ago, when I talked to the previous ambassador from Peru in London, he gave me the very clear impression that the democratically elected government in Peru did not have full control over the army. From what the noble Lord says, that seems to be equally true in Turkey today. The forced eviction is brought about with the non-combatants suffering threats, intimidation, ill-treatment, destruction of their property and torture.
The income of the villagers of Hassana arises from weaving on large looms which are permanently fixed to the floors of their houses. Therefore, when they are evicted their means of livelihood are left behind. They are thrown on the mercy of other people since their government do not help them.
Two threads of justification are put forward by the Turkish Government for such actions: first, to leave the PKK area isolated and, secondly, to punish villagers for giving food to the PKK. I believe that no possible blame can be attached to villagers who at gunpoint, themselves being unarmed, give food to people who demand it. I would recommend that as a policy. If people came to my front door waving weapons and demanding food I would give it to them myself. The villagers of Hassana have said: "We have been unable to resist and the Government has not helped us". I believe that no blame should be attached to those villagers.
An added issue arises in a village such as Hassana, in that it is predominantly a Christian village. It has one Syrian Orthodox church, one Roman Catholic church and one Assyrian Evangelical church. Those people are predominantly Christian and the Church in that area is very poor, for reasons that will be obvious in a Moslem country with the views and the constitution that Turkey

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has. The Church has publicly stated that it does not have the resources to look after the 200 people who are thrown out into the cold by the Turkish army. There is nothing that it can do about it. There is clearly an element of religious persecution but it is primarily an ethnic one, against the Kurds.
I ask my noble friend Lady Chalker to consider two questions. First, will she endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said about requesting the UN to send a rapporteur to investigate the torture, evictions, and all those problems, in the Kurdish region. I hope that the UN rapporteur will be permitted by the Turkish Government to visit. Obviously, the government do not want the UN to see what is going on there, but the best bet may be at least to press for that and then hope that the report will be published by the Secretary General after the visit. Secondly, will she agree to the Government pressing Turkey to put into practice the CSCE's Copenhagen Declaration, which Turkey has signed but is not fulfilling? That declaration confirms the rights of minorities, but Turkey does not permit the Kurds to exercise the rights to which it has agreed on paper. I believe that Her Majesty's Government should press the Turkish Government to implement that agreement in practice. Of course, we shall then need to check that that is being done.
Finally, perhaps I may add my support to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in asking the Government to do their utmost in providing humanitarian aid for those people who are left out in the cold without shelter or support and who are dependent on anything that they can get. Their means of livelihood has been removed and they are living in sub-zero temperatures, to which we can find at least some relationship at the present juncture in London.

Northern Ireland: IRA/Government Communication
3.48 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Arran): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a statement being made in another place by my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland:
"With permission, I will make a statement about messages between the IRA leadership and the Government.
"There has for some years been a means of communication by which messages could be conveyed indirectly, between the Government and the IRA leadership. Clearly such a chain could only function if its secrecy was respected on both sides.
"At the end of February this year a message was received from the IRA leadership. It said:
'The conflict it; over but we need your advice on how to bring it to a close. We wish to have an unannounced ceasefire in order to hold dialogue leading to peace. We cannot announce such a move as it will lead to confusion for the volunteers because the press will misinterpret it as a surrender.
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We cannot meet the Secretary of State's public renunciation of violence, but it would be given privately as long as we were sure that we were not being tricked'.
"That message came from Martin McGuinness. Madam Speaker I have placed in the Library and the Vote Office all consequent messages which HMG have received and despatched.
"The Government had a duty to respond to that message. I will read to the House the substantive response which, after an intermediate exchange, we despatched on 19th March. The text published yesterday was no more than instructions as to how this was to be transmitted. The message was in these terms:

'1. The importance of what has been said, the wish to take it seriously, and the influence of events on the ground, have been acknowledged. All of those involved share a responsibility to work to end the conflict. No one has a monopoly of suffering. There is a need for a healing process.

2. It is essential that there should be no deception on either side, and also that no deception should, through any misunderstanding, be seen where it is not intended. It is also essential that both sides have a clear and realistic understanding of what it is possible to achieve, so that neither side can in the future claim that it has been tricked.

3. The position of the British Government on dealing with those who espouse violence is clearly understood. This is why the envisaged sequence of events is important. We note that what is being sought at this stage is advice, and that any dialogue would follow an unannounced halt to violent activity. We confirm that if violence had genuinely been brought to an end, whether or not that fact had been announced, then dialogue could take place

4. It must be understood, though, that once a halt to activity became public, the British Government would have to acknowledge and defend its entry into dialogue. It would do so by pointing out that its agreement to exploratory dialogue about the possibility of an inclusive process had been giver. because—and only because—it had received a private assurance that organised violence had been brought to an end

5. The British Government has made clear that:
no political objective which is advocated by constitutional means alone could properly be excluded from discussion in the talks process; the commitment to return as much responsibility as possible to local politicians should be seen within a wider framework of stable relationships to be worked out with all concerned; new political arrangements would be designed to ensure that no legitimate group was excluded from eligibility to share in the exercise of this responsibility; in the event of a genuine and established ending of violence, the whole range of responses to it would inevitably be looked at afresh.

6. The British Government has no desire to inhibit or impede legitimate constitutional expression of any political opinion, or any input to the political process, and wants to see included in this process all main parties which have sufficiently shown they genuinely do not espouse violence. It has no blueprint. It wants an agreed accommodation, not an imposed settlement, arrived at through an inclusive process in which the parties are free agents.

7. The British Government does not have, and will not adopt, any prior objective of "ending of partition". The British Government cannot enter a talks process, or expect others to do so, with the purpose of achieving a predetermined outcome, whether the "ending of partition" or anything else. It has accepted that the eventual outcome of such a process could be a united Ireland, but only on the basis of the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. Should this be the eventual outcome of a peaceful democratic process, the British Government would bring forward legislation to implement the will of the people here. But unless the people of Northern Ireland come to express such a view, the British Government

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will continue to uphold the union, seeking to ensure the good governance of Northern Ireland, in the interests of all its people, within the totality of relationships in these islands.

8. Evidence on the ground that any group had ceased violent activity would induce resulting reduction of security force activity. Were violence to end, the British Government's overall response in terms of security force activity on the ground would still have to take account of the overall threat. The threat posed by Republican and Loyalist groups which remained active would have to continue to be countered.

9. It is important to establish whether this provides a basis for the way forward. We are ready to answer specific questions or to give further explanation.'

"It is clear that this message was consistent with our declared policy; namely, that if such people wanted to enter into talks or negotiations with the Government they first had genuinely to end violence. Not just temporarily, but for good. If they did, and showed sufficiently that they meant it, we would not want, for our part, to continue to exclude them from political talks. That remains our policy.
"The IRA sent a reply on 10th May which did not constitute the unequivocal assurance of a genuine end to violence on which we had insisted. Clearly a temporary ceasefire would not do.
"Substantive contact was resumed on 2nd November. The IRA sent the following message:
'This problem cannot be solved by the Reynolds Spring situation, although they're part of it. You appear to have rejected the Hume Adams situation though they too are part of it.
Every day all the main players are looking for singular solutions. It can't be solved singularly. We offered the 10th May. You've rejected it. Now we can't even have dialogue to work out how a total end to all violence can come about. We believe that the country could be at the point of no return. In plain language please tell us through the link as a matter or urgency when you will open dialogue in the event of a total end to hostilities. We believe that if all the documents involved are put on the table—including your 9 paragrapher and our 10th May that we have the basis of an understanding.'
"Our reply was despatched on 5th November:

'1. Your message of 2 November is taken as being of the greatest importance and significance. The answer to the specific question you raise is given in paragraph 4 below.

2. We hold to what was said jointly and in public by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach in Brussels on 29 October. A copy of the Statement is annexed. There can be no departure from what is said there and in particular its statement that there could be no secret agreements or understandings between Governments and organisations supporting violence as a price for its cessation and its call on them to renounce for good the use of, or support for, violence. There can also be no departure from the constitutional guarantee that Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom will not change without the consent of a majority of its people.

3. It is the public and consistent position of the British Government that any dialogue could only follow a permanent end to violent activity.

4. You ask about the sequence of events in the event of a total end to hostilities. If, as you have offered, you were to give us an unequivocal assurance that violence has indeed been brought to a permanent end, and that accordingly Sinn Fein is now committed to political progress by peaceful and democratic means alone, we will make clear publicly our commitment to enter exploratory dialogue with you. Our public statement will make clear that, provided your private assurance is promptly confirmed publicly after our public statement and that events on the ground are fully consistent with this, a first meeting for exploratory dialogue will take place within a week of Parliament's return in January.

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5. Exploratory dialogue will have the following purposes:

(i) to explore the basis upon which Sinn Fein would come to be admitted to an inclusive political talks process to which the British Government is committed but without anticipating the negotiations within that process;

(ii) to exchange views on how Sinn Fein would be able over a period to play the same part as the current constitutional parties in the public life of Northern Ireland;

(iii) to examine the practical consequences of the ending of violence.

6. The attached Annex summarises the sequence of events and provides answers to the procedural questions concerning exploratory dialogue which have been raised.

7. If, in advance of our public statement, any public statement is made on your behalf which appears to us inconsistent with this basis for proceeding it would not be possible for us then to proceed.

8. If we received the necessary assurance, which you have offered, that violence has been brought to an end, we shall assume that you are assenting to the basis for proceeding explained in this note and its attachment.'

"The House will appreciate from what I have read out, and from the other messages when they have time to study them, that our main objective has been to reinforce and spell out in private our publicly stated positions.
"It is for the IRA and their supporters to explain why they have failed to deliver the promised ending of violence. They should do so at once. Murder in Northern Ireland is no more tolerable than murder anywhere else in the United Kingdom. We must never lose sight of the fact that it is the terrorists who must answer for the deaths, destruction and misery of the last 25 years.
"It lies therefore with the IRA, and with them alone, to end their inhuman crimes. It is for them and those who support and justify them to explain why they have wickedly failed to do that.
"I promise the House and the people of Northern Ireland that, for our part, we shall not cease our efforts to bring violence to a permanent end. As my right honourable and learned friend told the House on 18th November if we do not succeed on this occasion we shall keep exploring again and again the opportunities for peace. Peace, properly attained, is a prize worth risks.
"If a genuine end to violence is promised, the way would still be open for Sinn Fein to enter the political arena after a sufficient interval to demonstrate that they mean it. Our message of 5th November again spelt that out.
"The key to peace is in the hands of the IRA." That concludes the Statement.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for repeating the Statement that was made in another place.
He will appreciate, as will the House, that it is difficult to understand precisely the sequence in which events happened unless one has access to the remainder of the documentation which I understand is being placed in the Library. I shall be grateful if the noble Earl will confirm that that is so, and that what is being placed there is the totality of the documentary contact that there

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was between the Government on the one hand and the IRA or Sinn Fein on the other. We need to know that the whole of the history has been revealed, particularly in view of what was said and what emerged during the past few days.
Secondly—again it is a question of detail—on page 5 of the Statement, paragraph 5 of the document of 19th March dispatched by the Government to the IRA in response to its request for advice, these words appear:
"The British Government has made clear that the commitment to return as much responsibility as possible to local politicians should be seen within a wider framework of stable relationships to be worked out with all concerned; new political arrangements would be designed to ensure that no legitimate group was excluded from eligibility to share in the exercise of this responsibility".
That presumably refers to the responsibility of local politicians within the,
"wider framework of stable relationships".
What do the Government mean by that? Are they envisaging new local constitutional arrangements for Ulster? Is it perhaps some new constitutional relationship between Ulster and the rest of the United Kingdom? In that paragraph are they questioning the whole union between Ulster and the rest of the United Kingdom? I saw those words only a few moments ago, as the noble Earl will appreciate, and I am bound to say that they raised my eyebrows somewhat.
What we have seen and what we have been told so far seems to reveal that there was a real possibility of a settlement following upon the initial approach of the IRA in February and the Government's response in March. However, somewhere along the line it appears to have gone wrong; I am not sure where or why. An extraordinarily long time appears to have elapsed between the receipt of a message and its answer either by the IRA on the one hand or the Government on the other.
The Government are right to take risks in the interests of peace. I do not believe that anybody in this House would question that; and certainly I, for my part, do not. However, they appear to have been somewhat inept and crass in their public disavowal of talks. I do not want to make too much of this point. It is precious near a negotiation; it is certainly a negotiation about how to start negotiating. Whether the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister can justify their public disavowal of what was going on in the terms that they disavowed it must be a matter for them to work out the precise semantic arguments which they will no doubt claim justified their unequivocal denial of what was clearly going on.
Perhaps more important than an inquest on the past is the question of where we go from here. How do the Government assess the possibilities? Is the peace process now firmly at an end as a result of the disclosures that took place? Have they brought it all to a shuddering halt? If what the IRA appears to have said on 2nd November was the position, it reveals that the goal of peace was almost within grasp—"We believe that the country could be at the point of no return. We cannot conduct dialogue to work out how a total end to all violence can come about". In plain language the IRA say, "Please tell us as a matter of urgency when you will
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open dialogue in the event of a total end to hostilities?" If that represented the position of the IRA as recently as 2nd November, clearly something went wrong between that date and today.
It is not good enough for the Government to say that it is up to the IRA as though the Government played no part in what went on during the past six months. I conclude by asking one further question. The IRA are not the only players in this affair; there are the Unionists. There are not only the Unionist politicians, but also the Unionist paramilitary terrorist forces. Can the Government say whether there have been "non-talks" in respect of the other military participants in the terrible affairs in Northern Ireland? Is there another set of documentation going from the Government to the UVF which at some stage in the future we may read and where again peace may have been just within grasp?
This is much too important an issue to take party, points and I hope that I have not done so. But my overwhelming feeling on reading the Statement is an intense disappointment that something which looked as though it was attainable has not been attained. We are entitled to ask the Government for a clear Statement that this is all there is and that there is not more tucked away which will trickle out at an inopportune moment in the future. Further, how do the Government see the future? Is the situation totally dead or is there still a chance to bring peace to this unhappy part of our kingdom?
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I too thank the noble Earl for reading the Statement of his right honourable and learned friend.
Before I address the substance of the Statement, I should like to raise the question of the messages and the text of the messages deposited in the Library. The noble Earl may or may not be aware that they were deposited in the Library quite recently. I am told by the Librarian that they were embargoed for 3.30 and then photocopies had to be made of them. I perhaps inform the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on the matter. I have only just seen them. If the Government seek the understanding of the Whole House and, as the Secretary of State was able to announce on television yesterday that his intention was to deposit the documents in the Library. it would have been helpful for them to have been deposited there in time to inform your Lordships' discussion this afternoon.
As to the substance of the Statement, I suspect I speak for many of your Lordships when I say that I would have been far more surprised and shocked if there had been no contact with the IRA than by the news that there had. It would have been in my view genuinely disgraceful if there had been no informal back-channels by which messages could be passed. But we have to make a clear distinction—one that I know the Government are concerned to make—between the transmission of messages and substantive negotiations. That is the question that these messages raises—was that line crossed?
I certainly believe that no question of the Secretary of State's resignation can or should arise on these grounds. I say to your Lordships as someone involved in

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Northern Ireland affairs that the task of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, as those who have held the office know, is not an easy one. It is a veritable bed of nails which the present incumbent seems to bear with considerable fortitude. In my view, he should be of good cheer because anyone who is savaged in the space of 24 hours by Gerry Adams, Dr. Paisley and Mr. Nick Budgen must be doing something right. But doing something right is not the same as doing everything right. I think there are grounds for some concern.
Perhaps I may address myself to the question of the first message from the IRA, on which the Government's basic argument depends. I am curious that that message—the, if you like, founding or originating message—does not appear in the papers in the Library. Indeed, the Statement of the Secretary of State simply says "At the end of February". I ask the noble Earl, when he replies, to reassure us that the text of the message from the IRA which he read out in the Statement is the exact wording that was received from the IRA. Will he please tell us the date on which that was received?
There is also, of course, as many of your Lordships will be aware, the difficulty the Government have got themselves into by the vehemence of their denials of any informal talks. It is one thing to have informal back-channels of communication. It is quite another thing to use the kind of language that any discussion with the IRA would turn the Prime Minister's stomach. Does the noble Earl not agree that the Government have got themselves into some of their present troubles by not being more circumspect in the language they have used in denying the kind of talks which are bound to be surrounded in some secrecy?
Finally, I am unclear whether there was a meeting immediately after Warrington. If there was, I think that this is a matter of a genuine public interest. I have not yet had time to see what messages were being passed between the parties at that point but I hope that that would have given some very considerable pause to this process. I am not clear from my first reading that that was indeed the case.
But, having said that, I have a more fundamental reservation about what is now happening. It seems to me that there is a great danger that the spotlight has now moved on to the IRA as though the whole issue were one about the IRA. The Hume-Adams talks tended in that direction and the new emphasis given in the past few days by the revelation must make many ordinary people following the news believe that peace in some way depends upon the IRA. It cannot be said too often that peace in Northern Ireland depends on the Unionist and Nationalist communities coming to terms with each other. Anything which gives the Unionist community the excuse to say "No surrender" and to throw up its hands in horror sets that cause back. I believe that the Government would be well advised in their approach to the summit in Dublin with the Taioseach to try to get the agenda back on to the question of a political settlement, without which any "peace" can really be no more than an armed truce.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. I wish to make one point very clear once again. As I have already intimated in the Statement, over the years approaches have at different times been made to us by people who believe that they have some influence with paramilitaries or who claim to be representing their views. It would have been completely irresponsible to ignore those approaches but we made it clear that we could have no talks or negotiations with anyone using or supporting violence, nor would we authorise anyone to have them on our behalf. That is absolutely the case.
With regard to the specific points put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, first, I can say to him that there are no more documents. The record is complete since February 1993. The noble Lord quite rightly asked what are the prospects for peace henceforth. We very much hope that the process for securing peace or endeavouring to secure peace has not been halted, but it very much remains up to the terrorists to end their violence. That would make life and matters very different in Northern Ireland. Certainly there is no equivalent process as regards the Loyalists. We call on all paramilitaries at all times to halt their violence of their own accord. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that the new arrangements referred to are those being discussed as part of the political talks process. That, I hope, is apparent.
The noble Lord, Lord Holme, said that the copies of the messages were placed in the Library too late. I apologise to him on that score but I think the answer is that they took some time to compile together in order to see that the date sequence was correct and that the whole texts of the messages were recorded accurately.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his loyalty to my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State. It has been a difficult time for my right honourable and learned friend and he has at all times and on all occasions taken the line that is consistent with the Government's line that there will be no talks or discussions or negotiations until the terrorists have laid down their arms. I can also say to the noble Lord that the record will show that the line was not crossed between negotiation and providing explanation and also that the IRA's message of 22nd February should be in the set, of which he should have a copy, deposited in the Library. The noble Lord nods his head. If that is not the case, I apologise.
4.18 p.m.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, there have always been contact men in Northern Ireland—Church leaders, ex-IRA men, do-gooders—submitting information to the Northern Ireland Office. You cannot stop them and you cannot ignore them. You have to wait and see what is the substance. But this time the contacts established a chain of communication and through this chain the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wrote to Provisional Sinn Fein using government official bodies. In the meantime the high command of the Provisional IRA heeded not and carried on bombing and killing, but the government constantly stated in

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Parliament that no talks or contacts were taking place. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in that regard deceived the House and the people.
Perhaps the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will have to consider his position—that is a matter for his own conscience—but from my point of view he was on to the price of peace and that may well excuse him. The breach really now has to be bridged. We have to get the talks back on track. I thought that on this occasion there was real hope. The difficulty now is the question of trust in Her Majesty's Government because various parties involved in the talks are withdrawing that trust. Nevertheless, now all is out in the open and all the papers are on the table, let us hope that the next meeting between the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach will be used as a springboard for new progress. Can the Minister give an indication whether the talks are going to take place and if so, when, and what have the Government now in mind?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I can certainly tell the noble Lord, Lord Mason, that my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State has a very considerable conscience in all matters pertaining to Northern Ireland. He has always taken great care not to use the word "contact". That point has always been taken very much into account in discussions from the point of view of the context of the talks or discussions which will not take place until, and if, the paramilitaries have laid down their arms. I can tell the noble Lord that it is hoped that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach will meet shortly in order to further these peace talks, both parties being adamant that they should happen.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, since the onset of the present murderous IRA campaign in 1970, I believe that successive Conservative and Labour governments have maintained contact with spokesmen for the IRA. Indeed, I know from experience that even under the Labour government, and when I was leader of the SDLP, contacts were taking place in an attempt to take the IRA away from violence. There were also people who were not elected politicians, but churchmen and people of all descriptions and from all walks of life, who tried to dissuade the IRA. I would certainly give my support. I would have absolutely no objection to what has been happening under the present Government for trying to maintain those contacts to see whether it is possible to bring violence to an end.
But I fully agree with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, in that it is not within the power of the IRA to bring about a total cessation of violence in Northern Ireland. Anyone who saw the frightening pictures on our television screens of the arms haul that was found at Teesport will be under no illusion that there are not other people in Northern Ireland who are prepared to wage massive violence in support of their political position. Let us make no mistake: the IRA want concessions before they will call for a cessation of violence. If any concessions are made to their demands that will provoke murderous activity from the Unionist paramilitaries and the Loyalists. I
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have no doubts or illusions that, had that shipment of arms arrived in East Belfast rather than where it was apprehended on Teesside, those arms would have been used not at some time in the far distant future, but certainly within the foreseeable future; namely, within weeks or months of the date of their arrival.
Therefore, I believe that in all the discussions which the Minister and the Government have with the IRA, they must relate only to one thing: that the IRA must call off their campaign of violence and that no concessions should be made to them for doing so. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme, said, all the statements which we have read and heard recently have given the IRA a political prominence. They have bombed their way into the media of this country. I believe that the IRA have not changed one single iota from the days when they attacked and harassed me in Northern Ireland. Indeed, only this week an autobiography was published by a former colleague of mine in the SDLP, Paddy Devlin. He and John Hume tried in 1972 to prevail on the IRA to stop their campaign of violence. That was 21 years ago. He arrived at this conclusion:
"The breakdown of talks with the Provos was a salutary lesson for us in the SDLP, for it showed that the IRA was incapable of engaging in the political process. Their agenda was shrouded in historic myths no longer relevant; their demands were unrealistic and their attitudes were sectarian and unbending".
Nothing has changed since 1972.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it quite clear in his Guildhall speech that, if the IRA end violence for good, then, after a sufficient interval to ensure the permanence of their intent, Sinn Fein can enter the political arena as a democratic party and join the dialogue on the way ahead. In these circumstances it is up to the IRA to end that violence.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, perhaps I may say first to my noble friend that I hope that he will have listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, has said for I could not find it in my heart to disagree with a word of it. I hope that the Secretary of State will take the same view.
Can my noble friend say a little more than he did about the chain of contact? I believe he said that, if its secrecy was exposed and its cover blown, then the chain would be broken. Can my noble friend say whether the chain is still in existence? If not, perhaps it would make things much more practical and clear if fax machines were to be used. I am sure that one of them would have to be on a mobile phone number, but nonetheless it might obviate the delays and misunderstandings of operating through intermediaries.
Secondly, can my noble friend say how many people have been murdered since the IRA expressed their desire to give up violence? Can he also say whether he has any understanding of whether the ending of all violence, in the vocabulary of the IRA, means that the security forces must lay down their arms? Can he say whether or not it is in any way conceivable that the question of an amnesty would arise? It would be helpful if that could be ruled out at this time.

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My noble friend referred to authorised contacts. Can he say whether there have been any unauthorised contacts and, if so, what was their nature? Further, can he and the Secretary of State finally take on board that we understand that the House was not deceived when the Secretary of State said that there had been no talks in the mind of the Secretary of State, but that it might have deceived itself by assuming that no talks meant no contacts? In that sense does my noble friend understand that every single word of what he has said, and the messages passed by Her Majesty's Government to the IRA, will now be looked on with the most enormous care and with a great deal of doubt?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I can say to my noble friend that a link to the Provisional movement has existed for a number of years under successive administrations and that the use made of the link has been at best intermittent. I do not propose now or later to reveal the nature of that link since that would obviously put lives at risk. As regards whether the chain has been broken, I do not know the answer to that at this moment. My noble friend asked how many people had been murdered in Northern Ireland since the atrocities started about a quarter of a century ago. The answer is approaching 3,000 people in Northern Ireland.
As regards the security forces laying down their arms, that would depend totally on the circumstances at the particular time. My noble friend also asked about amnesties. Certainly, the Government will not make any secret deals or arrangements with organisations supporting violence. We shall make no bargains for cessation of violence. The sentences given to those people convicted of terrorist offences in the United Kingdom are a matter for the courts. The arrangements for dealing with the subsequent release of sentenced prisoners are well known. There can be no question of waiving the criminal law for terrorists.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, I rise merely to ask for elucidation. I take it that, whatever the noble Earl has said, there is no question of Her Majesty's forces laying down their arms in Northern Ireland.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, that is what I said.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, as one whose family has lived in that unhappy Province for a very long time and with an almost unbroken connection, may I ask my noble friend two questions? First, will he convey to my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State and to the Prime Minister that 1 at least am 100 per cent. persuaded of their total integrity in this matter and very much regret the knee-jerk reactions of a person with somewhat violent opinions to the contrary? Secondly, must we not all remember that for the first time since the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland we now have a land frontier which is based upon a treaty which we have kept ever since it was made, and that we must not break off our contacts with the authorities on the other side of the land frontier as long as they respect the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, certainly as long as they respect the integrity of the United Kingdom, as my noble and learned friend says. I shall convey to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and to the Secretary of State my noble and learned friend's total understanding of and agreement as to the integrity of the British Government at this time.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, may I welcome the Statement and say that this is far too serious a moment to speak of deceiving Parliament or to attempt to lay down preconditions for any negotiations that may eventually happen? Meanwhile, and in view of what has taken place in the past year, may I ask the Government to consider two methods of proceeding? The first would involve an independent mediator with sufficient staff and resources for his task; the alternative could be an independent and professionally structured process of conflict resolution.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, this is not the time to debate the particular issues or suggestions that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raises. There have been many ideas and theories put forward for ceasing the violence in Northern Ireland, but I shall certainly bring his remarks to the attention of my right honourable and learned friend.
Lord Elton: My Lords, following the noble Lord, Lord Mason, and my noble friend, I reflect that nothing in Northern Ireland is simple and that there is a genius in the people of that Province for discovering complexity where simplicity is believed to exist. I think that we need to remember that the questions that we are now facing are actually very simple. First, should the Government have responded to the approach that was made in February? Clearly, it would have been verging on the criminal not to have done so. Secondly, should they have responded in the way that they did? I have not heard one word repeated here which was not already in the public domain as the Government's position. It cannot be described as "negotiation". We are sophisticated in the use of language in this house and I think that the country is, too. We know about "talks"; we know about "talks about talks"; and we know about "contacts". What have taken place have not been talks; they have not been talks about talks; it has been contact. In conclusion, it is remarkable to find in a politician such a combination of the robust and the sensitive as is to be found in the present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I join my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham in a complete endorsement of what he has done.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I warmly thank my noble friend for what he has said. It is quite apparent from what I have said this afternoon and from what has been said in the Statement that never at any time has any form of negotiation ever taken place.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, it seems to me that there is no criticism to be made of the contact. However, I should like to ask my noble friend a question on this point. Is he aware that in 1922 the Irish Free State signed a treaty which it lodged with the League of Nations

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acknowledging the international border of the United Kingdom? It then consequentially altered its constitution and claimed a province of the United Kingdom. Mr. Hume and Mr. Adams have the same long-term political goal—that is, a united Ireland. Had there been negotiations between Mr. Paisley and Mr. Adams, there would have been some point in them; but Mr. Hume and Mr. Adams actually want the same thing.
If we go on giving the united Ireland people cause for hope that they will get a united Ireland, all that we shall do is encourage the IRA, and we shall consequentially push into the corner the Unionist peoples of Northern Ireland. They may not appeal to us, and it is historically true that the English have been happier with the Southern peoples—they get drunk with them and go hunting with them and feel akin to them. There is the old adage that in the North, they like the flag and hate the race, while in the South, they hate the race and like the flag. If we go on pushing the Northern Irish people into a corner, we shall produce more reactive terrorism. It is a question not of weeks and months, but it is a question of not long before one of those ruddy container ships gets through. Thereupon, the Unionist people will be backed into a corner. They will be frightened and they will launch yet more murder and mayhem in Ireland.
The sooner that we say to the Republic of Ireland, "It is no interest of yours what happens in Northern Ireland. It is part of the United Kingdom", the better. It is no use Mr. Reynolds talking about Guildford or Scarborough. Belfast is just as much a part of the United Kingdom as Guildford or Scarborough. It is none of the Republic's business. If we give people encouragement to go on like that, the murder and mayhem will continue. The sooner we say that the Union is our business and nobody else's, the sooner peace will come to Northern Ireland; but Her Majesty's Ministers and the Opposition have not grasped that simple fact yet.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, all that I can say to my noble friend is that we are after two things. First, we are after an end to violence. Secondly, we are after a political settlement which is acceptable to all the people of Northern Ireland. We are making our strongest endeavours to bring about both aspects.
Lord Monson: My Lords, does the noble Earl not agree that the overriding aim of the Provisional IRA is the creation, by fair means or foul, of an all-Ireland republic from which every trace of what we might describe as "Britishness" has been totally eliminated and, specifically, where everything relating to the British monarchy has been eliminated? The Provisional IRA is not interested in a compromise solution, which would be incompatible with these aims. Therefore, any truce which it may agree to enter into will not be genuinely directed at a compromise, but will be a cynical ploy to achieve a short-term strategic or tactical advantage.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, it is very difficult at times to know precisely what the IRA is about; but I hope that it is absolutely clear what the British Government are about.

Kurdish Minority in Turkey
4.38 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, we move from one situation of violence to another in the valuable debate that was opened by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I want to start by thanking him not only for raising this issue on the Floor of the House but also for the very important role that he has fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, as chairman of the all-party Parliamentary Human Rights Group. He is tireless in his efforts not just for the Kurds but for people in many parts of the world, and those of different parties greatly welcome the trouble that he takes and the fact that from time to time he raises these issues in the House.
Since I am paying compliments, I should like to associate myself with what the noble Lord said about the decision that was taken about 18 months ago by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to establish a human rights division. That was a most important move. Many of us who are concerned with human rights issues find that department to be very helpful. I also welcome the sensitive and compassionate approach to this issue taken by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford. His was a short but caring speech.
I have some sympathy with the trade union delegation to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebuty, referred. Its members were locked up for a number of hours. Some Members of your Lordships' House will know that I had a similar experience in July and I shall begin by getting it off my chest. I had travelled from Istanbul to Diyarbakir. I had driven for five hours to Iraq in order to visit the Kurds in northern Iraq. On 16th July I returned to Istanbul making the same gruelling journey. At about midnight that night I was grabbed by the Turkish police and taken to the police station. They knew that I was a Member of your Lordships' House, although obviously I was not impressing them. They also knew that I had been in touch with the British Consul because I had said that the British Consul would come to see me and that I would prefer to go to their police station when the consul was there. That did not impress them and, with three others, I was frogmarched to the police station. The others included two Iraqi Kurds and I was most concerned for their welfare. There was also a British journalist who it may be thought had a part in this situation because she suddenly appeared late at night wearing a tee-shirt which had printed on it the word "Kurdistan". It was that which sparked off the trouble.
It was not a happy occasion. I was held by the police for 16 hours in a small and dirty police station. I was given no food or drink. There was no place to sleep and I lay on a dirty floor. We were guarded throughout and spent some time with our hands out facing a wall unable to speak or to move. It was only after several hours that we were released and I was allowed to come back to Britain.
I have sympathy with the victims of the Turkish police, who can be difficult. I was not beaten but I suspect that the Kurds who were with me would have

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had a much tougher time had they not been accompanied by a Member of the British Parliament. I received a fulsome apology from the Chief of Police once the circumstances of the case had been sorted out. The police had thought that we might be terrorists and it was in the atmosphere of terrorism that the situation occurred. I had returned from northern Iraq to Istanbul, making the five hour drive. During that journey the atmosphere was very tense and there were many tanks and gun positions. At the end of the day I discovered that 40 people had been killed during the previous week. That was the atmosphere in which the incident took place.
While I was in the police station I was approached by a member of the Foreign Office because there was interest in the press. I said, "No press. I make no comment". It seemed to me to be to the advantage of no one that some trouble should occur. My mission had been to Kurdistan. On my return I sent a report to the noble Baroness. She has to read many reports, even a lot from me, and therefore I do not ask her to comment upon it. However, it is right that we should see the situation of the Kurds in Turkey in the context of the whole plight of the Kurdish people and of our relationship with them.
In northern Iraq I saw Kurdish people who had been cruelly treated by Saddam Hussein. Hundreds of villages have been totally destroyed, together with their people where it has been possible to kill them. I saw the horrors of Halabja, which has been totally destroyed and where poisonous gas has been used. The people now suffer from the double embargo of the UN embargo against Iraq and Iraq's added embargo against the Kurds. Perhaps there will be other opportunities to raise the specific issues relating to the Kurds in northern Iraq.
However, we must see the situation as a whole. The Kurdish people are spread across five different countries including Iraq, Turkey and Iran where their circumstances are very bad. I have received many reports of great hardships suffered by the Kurdish people in Iran. There are smaller numbers in Syria and in Russia. Eventually, the whole future of the Kurdish people must be tackled by the world community.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred to their rights. The Kurdish people are "a people". Western governments, after a treaty was signed by Turkey, Iraq and Great Britain on 5th June 1926, completed the process of redefining and drawing boundaries which makes them "a people" of minority in five different sovereign nations, most of which have little respect for human rights. Therefore, the situation is most unsatisfactory. Even though the British Government concerned was in office many decades ago, the British people have a responsibility to ensure that justice is eventually provided to these people. I recognise all the difficulties. When I was in Kurdistan I said to some people, "Your demands for instant recognition are quite unrealistic". One must persuade people who are suffering from misery to be realistic but that is not easy, as many of us know.
As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, one cannot get away from the fact that the International Covenants
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on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have a common article. Article 1 declares:
"All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development".
Of course, there are problems of deciding who are "a people" for the purpose of self-determination. That issue must be properly considered by the UN. There are many alternatives, all of which have relevance to the Kurds in Turkey.
It may well be that the United Nations may decide that the Trusteeship Council should be given a new role. It may be decided that there should be a commission for self-determination where definitions can be drawn and accepted and where claims can be considered and accorded. However, to allow the situation to continue forever would be an affront to the Kurdish people who have a history, a language and a tradition of their own. They are an entity but they are divided by totally unrealistic and, for them, unfair boundaries.
I do not suggest that they are the only people who have such a claim. The same applies in a more defined form to Tibet. The same applies to the people of East Timor and to Kashmir. Often such claims for self-determination should not be accepted. The thought that everyone who claimed independence should be granted it would mean that the whole world would be plunged into chaos. However, the thought that those who have an entitlement should be refused that forever would mean that we would perpetuate injustice.
In seeking to respond to the Question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, it is necessary for the House and the Minister—as of course she will—to put the plight of the Kurds in Turkey into its wider perspective. I do not ever tolerate violence. I would not put my signature to the actions of the PKK any more than I would to those of the IRA because I do not believe that violence can be accepted. But I know that the degree to which those people are subject to cruelty by the government under which they live is not tolerable to the rest of us. It is not tolerable to the world and it is not tolerable to the CSCE. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for the way in which the problem has been analysed and reported on.
I felt a great deal of sympathy for the statement made by the chairman of the Diyarbakir Human Rights Association when he said:
"This is a dirty war with no restrictions. The Turkish Government call it a war against terrorism, but in fact it is a war against the nation and people. Western governments should stop supplying the weapons for use against our people".
We have said that in relation to East Timor. There are many other places where arms are supplied by British and other Western governments which are used for the oppression of peoples. The chairman continued:
"We recommend that states reconsider their arms sales policies, with a view to imposing a total embargo on the sales of weapons and ammunition to Turkey, in the light of the onslaught on the Kurdish people".
I wish to associate myself also with the conclusions reached by the delegation led by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I hope that the Minister will look at those conclusions, one of which stated:

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"We believe that the present wave of forced depopulation, military attacks on villages, and mass murders of Kurdish civilians by the armed forces, demands a much higher level of attention from the United Nations than it has received hitherto; that the Secretary-General's ideas on preventive diplomacy should come into play, and that the UN Rapporteurs on Torture and Extrajudicial Executions should conduct special investigations in the Kurdish region. We have also urged that our own and other CSCE Governments take steps to inform themselves about the crisis facing the Kurds".
The Kurds in Turkey face their own crisis. They know that they face a much larger crisis for Kurds who are associated with them across national frontiers. I hope that in her reply the Minister, who has a great care for human rights and for whom I have much respect, will present a broader approach to the problem, rather than merely answer the Question about the Kurds in Turkey.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, sits down, perhaps I may ask this question. Does he not give some credit at least to the Turkish Government for their efforts in a number of areas, particularly in the refugee camp for Kurds in Diyarbakir, which I also saw about a year ago? One must give credit and acknowledge that the subversive actions of the PKK in some of the refugee camps have thwarted the efforts which the Turkish Government have made from time to time.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord had put his name down to speak so that he could have shared his experiences with us in a rather more detailed way than merely by putting a question to me.
I am reluctant to make a judgment on a situation on which I am not fully informed. When people are driven from their villages into refugee camps and their families are slaughtered and houses destroyed, one cannot expect a reasonable approach from the politicians who represent their interests. I do not tolerate or give my support to violence, but I say that it is to be expected. One type of behaviour by a government leads to a certain response from peoples; and we must understand that. Where the Turkish Government have shown restraint and understanding, I give them credit for that. But, in my view, they have not seriously sought to solve the problem of a people who are oppressed as a minority within the Turkish state.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, in thinking that we should have a general and wider debate on the situation of the Kurdish people in all the countries in which they find themselves. Today I join with others who have already thanked the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for the way in which he introduced this debate on the slightly narrower issue of the Kurdish minority in Turkey.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, I have not been incarcerated in Turkey and I have yet to visit the Kurdish provinces of that country, although my son passed through them as a tourist a few years ago.
In the summer of 1988 I came to hear of Diyarbakir, Mus and Mardin because it was there that the Turkish Government put into refugee camps the Kurds from Northern Iraq who had fled from the genocide of
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Saddam Hussein. We know that that exodus followed the poison gas attack on Halabja and the destruction or hundreds, if not thousands, of Kurdish villages.
It is relevant to recall that the Turkish authorities kept those bona fide refugees under harsh conditions and were extremely reluctant to give access to foreign diplomats or to accept help for the refugees through the, International Red Cross and Red Crescent. That may be a partial answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth.
More recently, a friend of mine who has visited the region on several occasions and who speaks the local languages, reported that the Turkish army and police were confiscating cassettes of Kurdish music. She also witnessed random arrests, the breaking-up of meetings and wanton firing by army vehicles at civilian houses. I hope that many of your Lordships saw a. recent BBC 2 film presented by Michael Ignatieff. That showed the violent repression of the traditional Kurdish New Year celebrations in the town or village of Cizre. That was repression by the Turkish army.
I wish to pay tribute to the reports of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group on its recent and earlier visits. I very much respect the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to the observance of basic standards in an area which is easily disregarded or forgotten. The horror of Bosnia, Somalia, the Sudan, Kashmir and elsewhere should not make us oblivious to South-East Turkey; all the more so since Turkey is a member of NATO and the Council of Europe and has an association agreement with the European Community, which it aspires to join.
It is worth spending a few moments considering the background of the Kurds. There seems little doubt that they descend from the Medes, the partners in empire of the Persians, who so nearly overthrew classical Greece. The Kurds were the mountain people who fought so freely against the great army of Cyrus and later Roman expeditions. Later they found themselves squeezed between the superior power of the Ottoman and Persian empires.
In 1920, following World War I, as has been mentioned, the Treaty of Sevres provided for an independent commission to draw up a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish area of Anatolia. The Council of the League of Nations reserved for itself the right to grant full independence at a later stage. However, all of that came to nothing with the Treaty of Lausanne and there followed long years of struggle and suffering when the Kurdish population tried to resist the might of the new Turkish unitary state.
During those years—and indeed long after the Second World War—the official Turkish line was to deny that the Kurdish people even existed and to refer instead to mountain Turks. The separate and distinct language and culture of the Kurds was also denied and ignored. All official business had to be conducted in Turkish and attempts were made to prevent the use of Kurdish in public places. In a similar way, it was denied that members of the Alewite sect are Moslems, which they themselves claim to be.
In 1979, martial law was proclaimed in the Kurdish provinces. In April 1990, 11 years later and after

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guerilla violence and military repression, Turkey passed an emergency regulation for the Kurdish region. That permitted forcible resettlement, closure of the press, suppression of trade union rights and immunity from prosecution for government forces. Those who refuse to join village militias, are liable to forcible resettlement and the destruction of their homes. The Minority Rights group concluded in its report dated August 1991:
"Repression is no solution … If Kurdish community needs are not addressed, defeated political groups will turn to urban warfare…. The international community has a responsibility to help find a balance between the legitimate sovereign requirements of governments (e.g. Turkey) and the right of their Kurdish communities to enjoy cultural expression and genuine control over their own affairs".
The forecast of urban war has been borne out, alas, in recent weeks, with attacks on Turkish property in many cities, including London.
I trust that that report, together with the longer Minority Rights Group Report No. 23 on the Kurds of 1989 and the report of the Kurdistan Committee to the 47th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (which took place from January to March 1991) will be studied, not only by the Foreign Office but also by the Home Office. I urge that because the factual prose of the reports explains why there was a sudden influx into Britain of refugees from the Kurdish provinces of Turkey in the late 1980s. That flow of refugees is, as we know, now largely stopped by the imposition of visas and by the fining of air lines carrying passengers with incorrect documents. Even at this late stage, I once again urge Her Majesty's Government to allow the reuniting of those Kurdish families who already have one or more members in Britain. The seriousness of their cases has already been admitted by the granting of "exceptional leave to remain" here. The plight of the wives, children and dependants of those people is now desperate.
I turn now to the printed report of the Human Rights Group, drawn from both Houses of Parliament, which visited the Kurdish regions of Turkey between October 12th and 17th of this year. The first point to note is the unequivocal condemnation of war crimes and murders of non-combatants by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (known as the PKK). The group recommended that the International Committee of the Red Cross should persuade the PKK to observe the Geneva Conventions, which apply to all armed conflicts. The recommendation is made despite numerous violations of the convention by the Turkish Government. Therefore, there can be no question of support for terrorism.
The report itself makes grim reading. It points out the double effect of the Turkish constitution and the Anti-Terror Law which make any democratic action for change into treasonable and arrestable offences. The report deals with murder, attacks and arrests of members of the Turkish Parliament and the persecution of councillors and party workers of the Democracy Party and of the People's Labour Party. It examines the closure of newspapers disapproved of by the Turkish Government and the murders and attempted murders of proprietors, editors, journalists and human rights workers.
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Many hundreds of villages in Turkey have already been depopulated by expelling or deporting their inhabitants. The report to the United Nations which I have already mentioned gives the names of villages cleared, and usually burnt or demolished, between January 1990 and January 1991. In the same period, it is worth noting that about 20 forests were burnt down by the Turkish Army.
The parliamentary report deals at some length with attacks on villages with extra-judicial killings, the generalised use of torture and the rape of arrested women. In one particular case, an independent witness saw three police officers sexually assaulting two women in Agri Police Station. Worse still, doctors and health workers have supervised or condoned torture or refused treatment to torture victims. On the other hand—and in defence of the medical profession—a named doctor is reported to have been imprisoned for 45 months for treating a wanted person, and a second doctor is now said to be in prison in Mus for treating an alleged guerilla. Perhaps I may reinforce the report's appeal to the British Medical Association. I trust that the BMA will persuade their Turkish colleagues to repudiate all forms of torture and that it will invite the Turkish Government to instruct all hospitals to accept all patients who may be in medical need.
The parliamentary report follows an earlier report by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on his visit to Turkey in April 1992. It adds to and confirms existing information from Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. It cannot be brushed aside, particularly in view of the number of eyewitnesses and next of kin from whom it obtained statements. We look forward to hearing the Government's response and also their attitude to the recent detention in Turkey of a delegation of British trade unionists.
The Question refers to,
"the protection of the Kurdish minority in Turkey".
In 1990, that minority was estimated at 10.8 million people, no less than 19 per cent. of the total population. It is, therefore, a very substantial minority. Action is possible and should be taken at many levels. The UN Security Council should be involved because of cross-border attacks from Syria and into and from Iraq. There is also the question of the head-waters and downstream flow of the Tigris and the Euphrates. A UN rapporteur—and here I agree with previous speakers—should be appointed for the human rights of all the Kurdish peoples in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Special consultative status at the UN should be provided for the Kurdish people. The UN Rapporteur on Torture should also be asked to investigate urgently all allegations of torture of Kurds, and of others, in Turkey.
The Council of Europe also has an interest because Turkey derogated in 1990 from Articles 5, 6, 8, 10, 11 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I ask: is that wide derogation still justifiable? The Council of Europe and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be asked to visit and report on all prisons and places of interrogation and detention in Turkey, starting with the south-eastern provinces. The

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CSCE, which has also been mentioned today, now has a High Commissioner for Minorities. He should be asked to visit Turkey at the earliest opportunity. A substantial group of CSCE observers should be permanently deployed in the south-eastern provinces, which have known little peace in the past 70 years. Such action could only improve the human rights situation and help to obtain compliance with the Geneva convention.
Last but not least, Turkey is a member of NATO. All further supplies of arms and ammunition from NATO sources, including "trickle down" supplies from other NATO members, should be stopped until the Turkish forces adopt normal, civilised standards of conduct. I understand that Germany has already acted in this way. I conclude by asking Her Majesty's Government what instructions they have given, and will give, to their representatives in each of the international fora I have just mentioned.
5.10 p.m.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, I, too, begin by expressing my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for bringing this subject to the attention of the House. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on all he does as chairman of the parliamentary human rights group. I have attended the meetings of that group, particularly when they have concerned the Kurds. There could be no one more sincere in carrying out his work. I shall suggest in my speech, however, that the noble Lord must not consider that every single one of his ducks is necessarily a swan. He should consider that there is perhaps another side to this matter that we should discuss. The noble Lord, with his authority in this matter, should address that other side.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, mentioned the plight of the Kurds across the world. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, who rightly pointed out that there are now 28 million Kurds. They comprise the largest single group in the world who do not have their own country. I am just a tiny bit younger than the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Ennals, and I would say to them, with respect, that I am determined that within my own lifetime the Kurds will gain their own country.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, pointed out, the Kurds are descendants of the Medes. They have some 2,000 years of history. They are not a bunch of upstarts. Those of us who have had the privilege of meeting the Kurds, whether in Turkey, Iraq or Iran, will know only too well that they comprise a highly civilised, middle class, well educated, well ordered and decent people who deserve our support at every level and who deserve the support of every party in our Parliament.
The world's attention was drawn to the plight of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein when they fled his oppression and went into the hills. I believe that if one talks to Kurds in London now they will say that almost the best result of that action was the fact that the Kurds no longer have to explain what being a Kurd means. The Kurds have spent 2,000 years explaining what that means but it took the evil of Saddam Hussein to let us
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all know who the Kurds are. Indeed they have friends in every part of the House. I hope I may dare to make a political point, in that it was our own Government and indeed our own Prime Minister who proposed the safe havens for which the Kurds in Iraq are so grateful.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that there is a subtle difference between the Kurds in Iraq and some Kurds —I emphasise the words "some Kurds"—in Turkey. I do not wish to initiate a debate or. that point but I would point out to the noble Lord that the Kurds in Iraq have 30,000 Peshmerga soldiers to defend their borders against. Saddam Hussein. However, never once has it been stated in any newspaper that a Kurd in Northern Iraq has disrupted life beyond the 36th Parallel. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will not have come across such a comment.
Kurds in Iraq have told me again and again that, if they wished to, they could bring Baghdad to a standstill and they could reduce it to rubble. However, instead they want the whole world to view them as people who only defend that part of the land they believe is theirs and who never act in any other way.
I am worried when I read about Kurds in Turkey who have destroyed 44 schools. Of course I am referring to the PKK. There are 10 million Kurds in Turkey and I am sure the PKK constitutes a tiny group among them. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would be the first to condemn the IRA. I want him to condemn the tiny group I have just referred to and not the 99 per cent. of Kurds in Turkey who are decent and who deserve our support. However, sometimes one has to stand up and say, "Yes, I do support the Kurds but at no time will I have anything to do with terrorism of that sort". Surely nothing can be gained from razing 44 schools to the ground. That is certainly not a cause with which I would wish to be involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to a document from the Minority Rights Group International. The document is written by David McDowall. It is clearly supportive of the Kurds but Mr. McDowall states:
"In 1990 the Kurdish question became a major domestic issue. Scores were reported killed in the PKK's spring offensive, and 44 schools destroyed".
I do not wish to exaggerate this matter. I accept that that is only one paragraph in a large document but I believe that in the position the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, holds it is his responsibility occasionally when he fights his cause to make it clear to all of us that he will have nothing to do with terrorism of any kind, whatever the cause. The Kurds in Iraq have been fighting for years to defend their borders but they would never go over those borders and they would never commit terrorism of any kind.
I have four questions for the Minister which I hope she will be able to answer. One matter in particular worries me greatly. I have only recently heard about this matter, which has been mentioned by a senior source, and I would like to hear her views on it. First, we have a new Turkish Prime Minister and we are of course aware that she has her own political problems at the moment but in 1982 the Turks passed a law which forbade the Kurds free discussion. The legal document that was passed in the Turkish Parliament mentioned the

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"prevention of free discussion". Will the Minister say whether, when she next meets the Turkish Ambassador or the Turkish Prime Minister, she will make it very clear that those words should be removed from any legal document in the Turkish language? It cannot be right that 10 million Kurds in Turkey cannot even have free discussion. I hope she will leave the people she meets in no doubt that such behaviour is unacceptable for a member of NATO and for a nation that claims it wants one day to be part of the European Community.
Secondly, I return to the PKK issue. I cannot confirm my next statement, although it worries me sufficiently for me to raise it before noble Lords today. I hear that in London the PKK is extorting money from Turkish restaurateurs to promote its cause. Has the Minister heard this and is there any truth in it? If there is, will she tell us what is to be done about it?
Thirdly, is she aware—I am sure she is—of the success of the parliament in Erbil in Iraq, which is now almost autonomous in its running of what I call Iraqi Kurdistan? Fourthly, will she ask the Turkish Government to consider how that has worked? The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, mentioned the problems of sanctions that are working against the interests of the Kurds in Iraq. But, despite that, they are running what we might call a district council with great competence and determination. It is elected, with observers from all over the world. After 18 months we do not read in our newspapers how it has failed and does not work. We read simply that if the Kurds were given a little more they would be even more successful. I return to the point that we are dealing with a middle-class, educated people. We are not dealing with a cause that has no hope. We are dealing with a cause which demands, and lam sure receives, the support of everyone in this House and in the country.
Finally, I ask the Minister when she thinks of Kurds to think of those Kurds in six nations who make up the total of 28 million. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, proudly supports the Kurds in Turkey and I support them in Iraq. We should think of them as one nation.
I say to the noble Lord who brought this matter to the attention of the House that he and I think about this problem every day, as does the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. Sometimes people have one image of a nation. They hear the word "Kurds" and they think of Saddam Hussein. I do not want anybody who is on the outer rim to hear the word "Kurds" and think of terrorism and of people being killed by them. I want them to hear the word "Kurds" and to think of a race which is not receiving a fair deal and to feel that it is our duty to do something about it. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to think in those terms. I ask the Minister sitting on the Front Bench to do everything in her power to see that that happens.
5.21 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for raising this Question and will admire his energy and courage in visiting south-east Turkey under arduous conditions last month and producing so quickly such a detailed report
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for the All-Party Group on Human Rights. What he has told us, together with the additional information provided by other noble Lords, has demonstrated vividly how serious is the breakdown of human rights in Turkey.
On cue, but quite independently, the experience of a group of trade unionists who were recently detained and then expelled from Turkey has emphasised that fact. As the debate on the Unstarred Question began I was talking on the telephone to a member of that delegation, Alan Herzman, who is a member of MSF. He and his fellow delegates are still severely emotionally shaken by their experiences. He tells me that the whole area gives the impression of an armed camp. The group visited the town of Batman, which has a population of 250,000. It is occupied by no fewer than 30,000 Turkish troops. Deaths occur every day. On a number of occasions the delegation heard bursts of automatic weapon fire.
Later the delegation went to the village of Birik, which a few days previously had been destroyed by the Turkish Army. When they got there they were met by a group of women who were screaming hysterically that they should keep away because they would be in danger of being shot by the army. As noble Lords will have seen, one member of the delegation picked up some of the ash and rubble from one of the destroyed houses.
Noble Lords will have read of the experience of one member of the group, Mary Broadbin, who, while she was waiting to board the aeroplane at Diyarbakir Airport, was intimidated by an armed policeman who came close to her and fired bullets from his weapon into the ground two feet in front of her, purely as an act of intimidation.
As many other noble Lords have demonstrated in their speeches, the Kurds have been denied nationhood. As a people they are remarkably resilient. They accept adversity, but they are not deterred from pursuing their claim for self-determination, however cruel and illegal the methods used against them by Turkey, Saddam Hussein or Iran.
Until I read the noble Lord's report I had not realised how repressive are the Turkish laws against those who call for normal internationally agreed rights for minority groups. Thus, under Article 3 of the Turkish constitution, any act or statement, whether oral or in writing, which can be held to undermine Turkey's unity becomes criminal. Even the mildest assertion of Kurdish nationalism may land a person in the courts or be used to justify armed attacks by the police or the military. As has been pointed out, the penal code is incredibly harsh. It provides for the death sentence against anybody who appears to speak against the unity of the Turkish state or who advocates the separation of part of that state. Imagine the entire Scottish National Party under sentence of death.
With laws like those and the suppression of the pro-Kurdish press, the extrajudicial killings, torture and the wholesale destruction of villages, it is hardly surprising that the PKK has become an armed opposition group. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Archer, that PKK's treatment of village guards who are suspected of collaborating with the Turkish Army or police, even when they have been pressed into doing so,

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is brutal and deserves condemnation. The same applies to the PKK's habit of taking hostages and destroying buildings and schools, and sometimes violent international activities. However, like other groups over time and throughout the world who believe that their cause is just and have despaired of receiving a fair hearing, they have taken to the mountains and to arms. However, it has to be said that they do their cause no good by carrying out summary executions without trial.
In March this year the PKK proclaimed a ceasefire, which held for about three months. During that time there was a diminution of the killing by both sides. Unfortunately no use was made of that opportunity and no negotiations took place.
I would like the noble Baroness to consider the best way in which the UK, as a member of NATO, can act in the role of honest broker in this dangerous and deteriorating situation. I have a few suggestions: first, if Turkey cannot be persuaded immediately to take a view more in line with the CSCE and United Nations' resolutions on the treatment of ethnic minorities, we may have to consider tougher and more coercive measures. Trade sanctions on a fellow member of NATO may seem difficult, and possibly unthinkable, particularly in the case of arms sanctions, since it is a military alliance. However, now that there is no immediate threat to western Europe from Russia and the other states of the former Soviet Union, we have seriously to consider whether we can continue to include in the NATO Alliance states whose human rights records fall below the standards which are common to the remainder of the alliance and are in accord with United Nations and CSCE principles.
Perhaps as a minor diversion from the Question, I may put this forward as a subject for consideration. Do we not need to rethink the whole purpose of NATO, which was set up as an organisation to resist possible aggressive and expansionist attacks by the Soviet Union? Because of its notoriously bad human rights record, not simply in relation to its Kurdish minority, many of us have been worried for a long time about including Turkey in NATO. The Turkish Prime Minister, Mrs. Cillar, put forward constructive suggestions to improve relationships with the Kurdish minority last June. The fact that she was overruled, presumably by the military group which holds power, suggests that democracy in Turkey is a facade largely put on to please us. It would seem right that Turkey should now be required to enter into a dialogue with its Kurdish minority, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, pointed out, comprises one-fifth of the nation, end the repression of which we have heard details today, and allow free discussion of the Kurdish case both within and outside Turkey. Despite past favours by Turkey to us—I refer to the provision of NATO bases, putting its army at the disposal of NATO, and helping us in the Gulf War—we do not now need Turkey for our security, although of course we still need Turkish facilities to gain access to the Kurds in Iraq and friendly relationships with any nation are beneficial for all of us. But has the time not come for the United Kingdom and
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the remainder of NATO to put pressure on Turkey to put its house in order? Not only the Kurds but the ordinary hard-pressed people of Turkey would thank us for that.
Finally, as a doctor, I was disturbed, as was the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, to read in the report of the all-party group about the involvement or connivance of doctors in torture, and that doctors have been detained, arrested or even tortured themselves for treating guerrillas and PKK members. Particular mention was made of the case of Dr. Ilhan Diken, who was given a 45-month sentence. Dr. Tasci is still in Mus prison awaiting trial for giving medical treatment to an alleged guerrilla. Such action naturally makes doctors hesitant to treat those who could be held to have been wounded or tortured by the Turkish security forces.
In 1981 Islamic doctors issued the Declaration of Kuwait, which pledges the Islamic doctor,
"to be all the way an instrument of God's mercy, extending ray medical care to near and far, virtuous and sinner, and friend and enemy"—
a rule in line with our own Hippocratic Oath. The ethical committee of the BMA has received a copy of the report. I anticipate that it will be in touch with its Turkish opposite number. I hope that Her Majesty's Government too will take these further violations of basic human rights into account in their future dealings with Turkey.
5.35 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords. I join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on raising this important issue, and doing so on the basis of first-hand experience, visiting some parts of the region and meeting with some of those who are suffering in this tragic situation.
I speak with some diffidence, not having been able to see the situation for myself. However, I participate in this debate in your Lordships' House because the predicament of the Kurds in Turkey raises some fundamental issues on human rights. Moreover, sadly, it is possible to see many similarities between the suffering of the Kurds in Turkey and that of the Armenians, both historically and in the present day, with whose tragedy I have some familiarity.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has recounted today, and spelt out in great detail in his excellent report, some of the brutal policies inflicted by Turkey on the Kurds in recent times. There are, too, other sources which describe Turkey's acts of aggression, with the murder of tens of thousands of people, and the destruction of hundreds of villages. Since President Demirel reportedly recently declared that Turkey would wage a. "war of extermination" against all those defined as rebels, about 400,000 Kurds now fear that they are in imminent danger as their villages may be alleged to be supporting the PKK. Indeed many now believe that Turkey is about to seek a "final solution" of the Kurdish question.
The suffering of the Kurdish people has been beyond description. I shall add only a few more details and examples to those given by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and others. The attack on the village of Lice on 22nd October of this year involved the massacre of

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civilians and the use of flamethrowers, with the destruction of hundreds of houses, according to the Belgian Dr. Geert van Moorter of Doctors for the Third World. Most of the 10,000 now homeless villagers have fled through the cold to seek refuge elsewhere, but they testify to the fact that the destruction of their town was carried out exclusively by Turkish military forces.
Such barbarities have been continuing for some time. For example, the United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992 described attacks by the Turkish army on towns and villages suspected of harbouring PKK terrorists. For example, the report gives a graphic and very disturbing account of attacks on the provincial town of Sirnak, with security forces firing on homes and shops for 44 hours, killing 14 civilians and forcing more than 20,000 people to flee their homes.
There is also great concern among some of the remaining Christians in Turkey that they are being caught in the cross-fire between the Turkish Government and the PKK, and the Turkish military forces' attempt to annihilate those they define as PKK supporters. As my noble friend Lord Brentford emphasised, the Christian village of Hassana was subjected to brutal deportations. On 4th November the mayor of that village was arrested and told to evacuate his people by 20th November. In an appeal for help to the authorities, he was just told by Turkish military personnel that he should obtain assistance from Churches in the West. Having seen the treatment meted out to other villages under threat, he and his people had no option but to leave. On 14th November the village elders pleaded: "The first snows of winters have already fallen and in less than a week we must abandon our homes, our livelihoods and our possessions with nowhere to go."
It is perhaps not irrelevant to note that at the beginning of the 1960s there were about 40,000 Christians in that area. The village of Hassana had Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, as my noble friend said. But on the eve of the latest government offensive, there were only 2,000 Christians left in the region. The people of Hassana were among those most committed to remaining in their homeland and had long resisted pressures to emigrate. In mid-November of this year, News Network International reported mounting anti-Christian sentiments in Turkey over the past four months. The NNI states:
"In the south-east, where more than 11,000 have been killed in the past decade, the intensified violence threatens to expel the region's tiny Syrian Orthodox Christian minority, whose heritage stretches back to the 4th century … according to a Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) statement on October 7, a total of 720 villages in the south-east had been forcibly emptied by security forces in the past 2 years; by early November, Turkish newspapers and TV broadcasts were reporting that as many as 600–900 villages in PKK-dominated provinces of the south-east are being evacuated by security forces".
The Syrian community are not Turk, Kurd or Arab, but they are caught in the web of offensives between the PKK and government security forces and consequently are suffering mass deportations to the point of extinction from their ancient homeland.
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Another very disturbing development related to this issue is the growth of the use of allegations of Armenian complicity with the PKK to whip up a growing wave of anti-Armenian feeling being generated throughout Turkey. Indeed, there are some rumoured allegations that the PKK leader is an Armenian. But although rumours abound, the Turkish daily news admitted on 11th November:
"that there seems to be no concrete evidence for such an (Armenian) connection in Ankara's hands".
Nevertheless, such rumours of PKK connections can lead to pretexts for aggression and hostility towards Armenians in Turkey and elsewhere. There are reports of a dozen violent attacks against Armenian churches and institutions in Istanbul.
Like my noble friend Lord Archer of Western-super-Mare, I hold no brief for terrorism or for terrorist acts of violence perpetrated by the PKK. But the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has addressed their predicament and their policies very well in his excellent speech. Whatever the nature of the conflict which has tragically developed between the Kurds and the Turkish Government, it cannot be outside the bounds of possibility to see Turkish behaviour towards its Kurdish people as part of a continuing trajectory of expulsion or annihilation of ethnic minorities from Turkey. That trajectory saw the death of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 and also of Turkey's Aramaic-speaking Christian population so that by 1918, Anatolian Turkey was virtually devoid of those minorities which had numbered over 2.5 million people.
Then in 1921, there followed the expulsion of Turkey's Greek population, so that the Kurds have been left as the only sizeable ethnic minority in Turkey capable of sustaining an identifiable, distinctive communal life. There are many sad similarities between the treatment being meted out to them now and that inflicted on the Armenians and other minorities in earlier years.
The question must therefore be asked whether the international community, and in particular, Her Majesty's Government, are doing enough to put pressure on Turkey to desist from its brutal policies. In so doing, I wish to raise a few questions. I apologise that I have not been able to give my noble friend more notice, but I was abroad last week and have given very short notice of the questions. First, I should be grateful if my noble friend could indicate now or at a later time by what authority Turkish armed forces undertook attacks on Kurdish people outside Turkish territory in Northern Iraq. As a member of NATO, Turkey presumably had to receive permission to undertake a military offensive in another sovereign state. How was this permission given, by whom and when?
Secondly, perhaps I may ask my noble friend whether, since we are a member of NATO, she can reassure your Lordships that no British or NATO arms or money are being spent on Turkish attacks against Kurdish civilians?
Thirdly, could my noble friend the Minister indicate what is being provided in the form of humanitarian aid

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for the Kurdish people suffering from these deportations and acts of aggression, and what is the policy of the Government towards the provision of aid to them?
Fourthly, is my noble friend able to say what steps the CSCE is taking to try to persuade Turkey to desist from the gross violations of human rights? More generally, how is the CSCE endeavouring to achieve a balance between the twin pillars on which it was founded—its commitment to the principle of territorial integrity and its commitment to the protection of human rights? It appears that so far there has tended to be a greater concern for commitment to the principle of territorial integrity than for the protection of human rights. There is a real danger that if this imbalance continues, it will be seen as a mandate for repressive regimes to discriminate against, or even to wage war upon, their minorities with impunity.
While appreciating the important role of the CSCE's Commissioner for Minorities in trying to prevent violence against minority groups and while appreciating the considerable success he has already had, I understand that it is outside his remit to address situations where violence has already occurred. That is understandable, but it seems to leave a vacuum, with some of the most vulnerable peoples exposed to brutality, without any kind of redress or mechanism of appeal. I understand that the Council of Europe may be considering some means of filling this vacuum, but I wonder whether my noble friend could give some idea of how the matter will be dealt with and how soon.
With regard to the European Community, the Turkish Government place a high priority on Turkey obtaining membership of the European Community. Can my noble friend indicate the attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards the expansion of the EC to include Turkey and provide some assurances that the United Kingdom will oppose Turkish membership until such time as the rule of law prevails and human rights are adequately guaranteed in Turkey?
There is a grave fear in Armenia, where I was last week, that Turkey may be using the policy of a war of extermination of those Kurds it defines as rebels in order to attack Armenia itself, by alleging that it is harbouring Kurds. There is particular fear that Turkey may undertake a military offensive in the region of the Lachin corridor—that vital lifeline which links Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, without which Nagorno Karabakh could not survive. That would enable the Turks to achieve a military coup which would greatly help their friends, the Azeris, with their attempts to annihilate the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh.
In conclusion, I should just like to say that of course I understand that the West is keen to see Turkey become a bridge between East and West; that Turkey has strategic significance for NATO and western defence policy and is a significant source of trade for Britain. However, does that mean that we should mute our expressions of anxiety over well-documented and gross violations of human rights or not seek adequate mechanisms to protect very vulnerable groups, such as the Kurds, who are suffering from Turkey's brutal policies towards them, before it is too late and they go
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the way of the Armenians in 1915, or the Greeks in 1921? Or is that bridge between West and East to be littered with even more corpses?
It is perhaps not irrelevant, as I finish, to recall in your Lordships' House this afternoon the report of the speech given in this House many years ago by Lord Bryce on 6th October 1915. Speaking of the Turkish massacre of the Armenians, he described in horrible detail the systematic massacres and deportations, with details which are grimly reminiscent of recent reports of similar brutality inflicted on the Kurds. As he drew to a conclusion, he said:
"I am sure we are all heartily agreed that every effort should be made that can be made to send help to the unfortunate survivors, hundreds of whom are daily perishing by want and disease."
He urged the public opinion in the world and especially neutral nations:
"Let them now tell the Turkish government that there are some things which the outraged opinion of the world will not tolerate."
I believe that the echoes of Lord Bryce's message speak today in your Lordships' House on behalf of the Kurds and I hope that they will not speak in vain.
5.48 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, I wish to add my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Avebury for initiating this debate. In the first seven months of this year four journalists were killed in Turkey. In southeast Turkey, one newspaper distributor and a newspaper vender were killed during the same period. The Turkish Government have made little effort to find and prosecute their killers and many other journalists, newspaper vendors and distributors have received death threats. Journalists who are part of what we may call the mainstream of the press are left alone, but journalists from Left-wing newspapers are frequently attacked, arrested or brought to trial. In south-east Turkey, journalists are particularly at risk.
Although the coalition government that came to power in November 1991 suggested that past restrictions on freedom of expression would be lifted, their actions have been extremely disappointing. More than that, it is clear that the Turkish Government are very keen to prevent knowledge of their strategy and tactics in south-east Turkey from reaching the outside world.
The repression of freedom of speech includes other, somewhat less brutal matters. In 1988, Edip Polat published his first book The Truth about Diyarbakir, a first-hand account of conditions suffered by mainly Kurdish political prisoners in the notorious military prison of that name. Its second edition, with a new foreword by the author, led to his imprisonment for six weeks and his eventual acquittal on charges of "making separatist propaganda".
In 1992 Edip Polat wrote a second book which described his trial for his first book. In December 1992 he was convicted under the same law—Article 142 of the Turkish penal code. He was sentenced to two years in gaol. He also received a record fine, which was imposed upon him and his publisher. The fine was later overruled by the court of appeal.

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Polat's third book, Kurds and Kurdistan in the Language of Science, published in 1992, lists plants, insects and one mammal which contain references to Kurdistan in their Latin classifications. The book also gives the view of Turkish scientists on the use of such classifications and describes the uneasiness with which those classifications have been met in some academic circles in Turkey. For that, Polat was indicted and faced a prison term of up to five years and a fine of 50 million Turkish lira, which is about £4,270. The publisher and Dr. Ismail Besikci, who wrote the preface, were tried with the author. Polat and Besikci were acquitted on 2nd April. The court agreed that the book contained scientific content.
There are other similar cases which demonstrate beyond question the policy and practice of the Turkish Government to silence opposition to their policies and to prevent the truth from becoming known. It is interesting to note that some of the structures of a civilised society are still in place in Turkey. We have heard how terror subverts humanity, how some doctors have gone along with the terror and how some doctors are fighting it. It seems that the Turkish courts system still operates according to the rule of law.
I should also like to refer to a point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, about the dual nature of the persecution. The noble Lord referred to the religious as well as the ethnic aspects of this terrible situation. I wonder whether the Minister can tell the House whether Her Majesty's Government agree that there is a need greatly to strengthen the Copenhagen Declaration, which encompasses both ethnic and religious minorities, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said, to strengthen the powers of the Commissioner for Human Rights?
Finally, I realise that although the Cold War is over, the area of south-eastern Europe and south-western Asia is in many parts facing an uncertain future. I can see that we need all the sturdy allies that we can get. I have to conclude that that need is the reason why so little pressure has been brought to bear on the Government of Turkey by the governments of western Europe.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, I have travelled through Kurdistan half a dozen times in the past 25 years, and so consider myself one of that region's oldest friends in this House or the other place. As such, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Avebury for putting down this Question today. I apologise for not being in the House when my noble friend rose to speak owing to the late arrival of my flight from Belfast.
I wish to refer for just a couple of minutes to one subject only; namely, the Treaty of Lausanne, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hylton. As he told noble Lords, although rather vague promises had been made to the Kurds in the preceding treaty of Sevres, which was never ratified, there was no mention whatsoever of them in the Treaty of Lausanne, which replaced it in 1923. Nonetheless, it is important that
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noble Lords should remember that under that treaty very important civil rights were guaranteed to all minorities in Turkey. I quote from Article 38 of the treaty:
"The Turkish Government undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all inhabitants of Turkey without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion.
"All inhabitants of Turkey shall be entitled to free exercise, whether in public or private, of any creed, religion or belief, the observance of which shall not be incompatible with public order and good morals".
Article 39 says:
"All the inhabitants of Turkey, without distinction of religion, shall be equal before the law.
"Differences of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Turkish national in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, as, for instance, admission to public employments, functions and honours, or the exercise of professions and industries.
"No restrictions shall be imposed on the free use by any Turkish national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, religion, in the press, or in publications of any kind or at public meetings.
"Notwithstanding the existence of the official language, adequate facilities shall be given to Turkish nationals of non-Turkish speech for the oral use of their own language before the Courts".
That treaty was ratified in 1923. The principal signatories were the British and French Governments and their empires and the representatives of the Ottoman Empire, which was in the process of breaking up. I put it to noble Lords that that gives Britain, as one of the signatories, a duty to see that it is fulfilled. From the moment the treaty was signed, successive Turkish governments have totally disregarded those articles, and have denied all the most basic human rights to the unfortunate Kurdish people in their country. I hope that the noble Baroness may be able to give some assurance that, even at this late date, Britain can do something to support what was signed 70 years ago.
5.59 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, perhaps I may begin by echoing what has been said by many noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. The House is grateful to him for drawing our attention to the situation in Kurdistan. Not for the first time has the noble Lord spoken for those who are denied a voice, or evoked the conscience of the international community on matters which it is all too easy to overlook because they are far away and out of sight.
I believe that there will be a time—I believe it will be in the lifetime of some noble Lords—when there will be a supranational authority that is as capable of enforcing a global consensus on human rights as the police and the law courts are of enforcing the civil rights of our citizens within our national borders. I believe that it will be accepted as as natural and unquestioned a part of the global community as our civil institutions are accepted in this country. Then one day it may occur to someone to write a history of how it came about. When that happens I am certain that there will be a chapter which recognises the part played by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the Parliamentary Human Rights Group.
At the outset let me echo what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and my noble friend Lord Ennals as to the benefits which I believe have flowed from the establishment of a Human Rights Division within the

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Foreign Office. We all recognise the part that it has played. The House will particularly appreciate the fact that, in advance of this debate, we have been given the opportunity to read the report of the mission led by the noble Lord. As one who has participated in numerous missions of that kind, perhaps I may say that it is a model of what a report should be. It reports in detail the words of those to whom the members of the mission spoke. It carefully distinguishes fact from comment and provides a helpful and sensitive historical background on how the situation arose.
When we hear of the atrocities spoken of by a number of noble Lords today, it is easy to find ourselves tempted to say that they are unique. It would be some comfort if they were. But the kind of debate that we have had today is all too typical of many debates in your Lordships' House in which the noble Baronesses, Lady Chalker and Lady Cox, other noble Lords and I have participated. It falls into a tragically familiar pattern. A population with its own history and culture which seeks to assert its identity begins by claiming the right to decide questions affecting its own interests. The state in which it constitutes a minority responds without the understanding and sensitivity which might lead to an accommodation and the authorities find that what began as a claim to a limited series of rights has been transformed by their intransigence into a separatist movement among a whole people. By its very nature, a separatist movement is an attack upon the integrity of the state, which the state feels called upon to repress. If there is no lawful way of pursuing their objective, the separatists will be tempted to pursue it unlawfully. So repression leads to the politics of violence; the violence leads to yet more violent repression and then there is civil war.
Perhaps I may say at once to the noble Lord (and my namesake), Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, that I deplore, as he does, the unnecessary and mindless violence from some of the Kurdish groups. I believe that they do as little good for their cause as many other terrorists do for the causes which they purport to espouse.
In any armed conflict, unless the military authorities on each side are able and willing to maintain a high degree of discipline, frustrations will be vented on those who are nearest and most defenceless: the civilian population. One atrocity leads to reprisals, and reprisals lead to counter-reprisals. So it goes on. Your Lordships' House heard some references to that in another context earlier today.
It is a tragically familiar pattern in many parts of the world. In the case of the Kurds, history has added a number of factors which exacerbate that process. First, as my noble friend Lord Ennals reminded us, the Kurdish people are a minority in five (I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Archer, said six) different countries, where they believe that they are entitled to a future as a single united people.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, I apologise to the noble and learned Lord for interrupting him. Since Russia has broken up into several countries,
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it is hard to express where the one and a half million Kurds in those countries now belong, and they are suffering an even greater problem in some ways.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I was trying to do the arithmetic; but I fully understand his point. One thing on which we are certainly united is that they are the largest national group in the world which does not have nation-state status.
Secondly, as the report makes clear, modern Turkey emerged from the decay and final disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. It was not surprising that those who founded the new state and drafted the Constitution were concerned—perhaps "obsessed" would be a better word—with maintaining the unity of the new state and preventing further fragmentation.
The report refers to Article 3 of the constitution which declares that the Turkish state, its territory and nation, is an indivisible entity, and its language is Turkish. There was to be no political separatism, not even an assertion of a cultural identity. That was reflected in the penal provisions to which some noble Lords have alluded today. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, told us that there is repression of all expression of Kurdish nationalism in the area. The singing of a Kurdish song can be construed as:
"aiming at damaging the indivisible unity of the State".
That is a quotation from Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law.
On 12th October Amnesty International reported an increase in the number of arrests and proceedings against the press and publishing community. Amnesty referred to a military briefing in June announcing what it called "total struggle" against the Kurdish Workers' Party and calling on the press to report "in a spirit of unanimity" with the Government. We know that from cases like Recep Mavasli, who was indicted for issuing separatist propaganda, having been released only in 1991 after nine years of imprisonment and torture.
But it is equally clear, as some of your Lordships have pointed out, that even with the advantage of repressive laws on the statute book, the authorities are not content with gagging the press by the measures prescribed by law. There is the documentation to which the noble Lord, Lord McNair, referred from Human Rights Watch. The report contains a horrifying chapter on the beating-up of newsboys selling newspapers of which the authorities disapproved. There are many reports of murders of journalists, as the noble Lord mentioned a few moments ago, such as Fernap Tepe and Kamal Kilic. The authorities do not admit responsibility for those murders, but no one has been brought to justice.
Where there are systematic crimes—clearly they are systematic crimes—against individual victims, any government has a heavy obligation to bring the perpetrators to justice. I am bound to say that nothing that we have heard from the authorities indicates any burning concern on their part to do that.
As so often in this kind of situation, excesses on the one side invoke imitation from the other. The report recounts how, on the last day of the visit, the PKK

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warned reporters from the Turkish media to leave the region because they said that what they were saying amounted to government propaganda. As the mission pointed out, the best hope of minimising atrocities would be to encourage journalists from all publications to visit the region and report without any inhibitions. Some will report with more regard to their prejudices than to the truth. That has always been the case. But daylight is a more discouraging atmosphere than darkness for deterring repression.
Caught in the middle of all this are the unhappy villagers, whose involvement is simply that they happen to live in the area where the fighting takes place. The noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, spoke movingly of their plight. The military descend on a village which is believed, rightly or wrongly, to have been used as a shelter by insurgents. If they identify a target, they are not deterred from firing because civilians may be in the line of fire. We heard tragic stories of children killed in that way. Nor will they observe the safeguards of a proper trial if someone is suspected of having fired upon them.
All that is understandable in the heat of a military engagement. Those responsible for unleashing any war must know that it is not always possible to guarantee observance of the rules of law. But it behoves military commanders to maintain discipline among those whom they command. Where there have been breaches of discipline, they should bring the perpetrators to justice publicly so that the commanders' commitment to the rules can be seen. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, indicated, the military appear to be wholly beyond the control of the civil authorities and, in many cases of their own commanders.
A report of Amnesty International issued in July of this year gives one example that has already been referred to by some of your Lordships. It relates to the village of Ortasar and states,
"On 21 June several hundred soldiers and special team members entered the village… According to an account received by Amnesty International the soldiers began hitting the villagers with the butts of their weapons. Electric cables attached to armoured vehicles were used to give the villagers electric shocks, and cigarettes were stubbed out on them. Women and children were beaten. The villagers of Ortasar had refused to join the village guard militia".
Villagers are required to join the militia to fight the insurgents or they will be subjected to reprisals of that kind. That was reinforced on page 16 of the report. There is a mention by a farmer of the village of Kele, who said,
"On October 11 at about 1.30 pm we heard firing and saw a large column of armoured vehicles … The army gave us until Thursday to join the village guards, or we would be bombarded. We didn't join and the village was attacked, killing two people. The army said afterwards that 9 terrorists had been killed".
Perhaps one is bound to add, with the noble Lord, Lord Archer, that it is tragic that the PKK have adopted a campaign of counter-terror. Villages where people assist the military or join the militia are subject to reprisals. The villagers are the nuts in the nutcrackers. They are terrified to give assistance and terrified to refuse.
Yet again we find ourselves asking what, if anything, the international community can do to help. The report
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makes clear, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, mentioned a moment ago, that we cannot dismiss the matter by saying that it is none of our business. Those who were responsible for the peace settlement with Turkey after the First World War clearly were not above sacrificing the aspirations of the Kurds to the political requirements of the moment. It is true that the Treaty of Lausanne recites the rights of minorities within Turkey; but there appears to have been no great international consensus to enforce that recitation at a later stage.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, for the second time I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Perhaps I may say that his remarks are just as true today. During the Gulf War, the Kurds in Iraq played their part in trying to bring down Saddam Hussein. President Bush and the United States did not back up the Kurds in Iraq after they had played their part.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Lord says. In fairness, there was a genuine difficulty. The forces acting in the Gulf War were acting on behalf of the United Nations and with its authority. They could not go beyond the authority bestowed upon them. However, I deplore the general absence within the international community of the concern which might have been shown in some quarters. It is true that even after years of reflection those who led the thinking of the international community declared in Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
"All people have the right to self-determination".
There is not one word in regard to the criteria by which we decide who are the peoples who can exercise that right and, more particularly, what their remedy is to be.
The mission, in its report, makes a number of helpful recommendations which could well form the basis of the way forward. It cites the declaration of the CSCE at Copenhagen, affirming the right of national minorities,
"freely to express, preserve and develop their ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious identity".
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord McNair, asked whether the word "religious" was in that document. If that was his question, the answer is that it was.
Lord McNair: My Lords, I knew that the word was included. I was hoping for the whole declaration to be reinforced.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I am grateful for that intervention. I certainly echo what the noble Lord said.
I was privileged to be in Copenhagen for some of the discussions. They were dealing, of course, not with a right of independence, but with rights that are exercisable within a state where the people in question constitute a minority. There is reason to believe that, if there was dialogue, even the PKK might settle for less than total independence. The mission recommends that the CSCE enlarge the powers of the High Commissioner for Minorities to entitle him to undertake fact-finding missions. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, I was somewhat surprised that he did not already have that power. If he does not, one would hope that that

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recommendation will be acted upon, and perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, can assist us on that point when she replies. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, reminded us, it is clear that we have a declaration from the CSCE recognising responsibility for the international protection of minorities.
The mission recommends that the EC states should instruct their embassies in Turkey to visit the region. Whatever else we may say about the EC, it is clear that membership of it now entails more than merely economic obligations. It entails a commitment to civilised treatment of one's subjects. As I believe the noble Baroness reminded us. Turkey is at least an applicant for membership of the EC.
The mission suggests also that the UN might send a special representative to the region. Turning from governments to NGOs, it recommends that as many human rights NGOs as possible interest themselves to the extent of sending missions. I endorse that and look forward to hearing the views of the Government on that suggestion. Sending a mission will not be without its dangers. At the weekend we saw an example of that in the intimidation of the trade union delegation referred to by my noble friend Lord Rea. We heard from my noble friend Lord Ennals regarding his experience there.
It is clear that the visit of my noble friend Lord Ennals and the visit of the trade union delegation worried the authorities in Turkey. That is the purpose of sending a delegation. They knew that somebody cared and those who are the victims in the villages know that someone abroad is trying to establish some solidarity with them. I hope therefore that those who go to the regions on behalf of NGOs will be supported by their governments and that there will be insistence that their safety is regarded by the authorities as a matter of the highest importance.
It was also recommended that the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial execution, Mr. Ndiayo, make a study of the situation and ask the authorities to permit a representative to visit the region. I look forward to hearing that the Government will support that.
The mission recommends too that as many parliamentarians as possible visit Turkey, not only to inform themselves of what is happening in the region but in order to afford a degree of security to their fellow parliamentarians who are vulnerable to death threats, woundings and, as we know all too unhappily, assassinations. It recommends that the International Committee of the Red Cross should make contact with the leaders of the PKK urging them to respect the rights of non-combatants. It recommends that the BMA makes contact with the Turkish Medical Association to make representations on the need to provide treatment for people in custody, but particularly the victims of torture. I echo the appeal of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and of my noble friend Lord Rea. I have a feeling that the Turkish Medical Association would welcome representations of that kind. I do not think that it would be embarrassed by them.
I should like from this Bench to endorse all those recommendations. It used to be accepted that the way in which a government treats its own subjects within the confines of the existing state is a matter between
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government and governed and that any intervention by the rest of the world would be an invasion of national sovereignty. One of the earliest question-marks over that doctrine arose in the 19th century from the treatment by the Ottoman Empire of some of its minorities; and early in this century, as referred to by noble Lords, the massacre of the Armenians by the Young Turk Government was a further atrocity which awoke the conscience of the world. Turkey has the unenviable credit for stimulating the world community to action in defence of human rights.
Turkey is a member of a number of international organisations; for example, as my noble friend Lord Rea reminded us, of NATO. We may have to insist that membership of those organisations carries with it a responsibility for observing certain standards of civilised behaviour. I hope that in that context the Government will press the Government of Turkey to recognise its obligations under the Geneva. Convention, to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred. And perhaps, looking forward a little further into the future, we may give further consideration to the establishment of an international criminal court with jurisdiction to hear and, where appropriate, punish offences against internationally recognised codes of conduct.
Finally, I hope that the noble Baroness, when she replies, will indicate that the British Government will consider responding to the invitation put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, to reunite the families of Kurdish refugees—those who have already been accorded refugee status in this country.
That brings me back to where I began. The world is being driven by events to become less hypnotised by the sovereignty of the nation state and more prepared to recognise the mutual responsibilities of the human race. I hope that that message will go out from this House tonight. When the bell tolls for those about whose tragedies we have heard today, it tolls for us all.
6.23 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I want to begin by thanking very sincerely the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and all noble Lords and noble friends who have spoken in the debate. l rarely remember such unanimity—maybe with a few small points of difference—on a subject which obviously concerns your Lordships' House and concerns governments all across Europe. I think that what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, was saying just now is one of the clear unifying points among all nations which believe in democracy; that what is going on in Thrkey brings everyone down. That is why action must be taken.
It is easy to say that; it is far less easy to have it implemented. I am very sure that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in his comments tonight, was seeking to advance the work that he has done for so many years in the most beneficial way for the ordinary Kurdish people, those civilians who are so sorely oppressed both by the PKK, on the one hand, and by the excesses of Turkish troops on the other.
Perhaps I may get one matter out of the way and then return to the main purpose of the Unstarred Question,

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which was put down before the visit of the trade unionists, about which we have heard a great deal, this weekend. It is important that I should put the facts of that situation on the record. The party of British trade unionists very unwisely travelled to South-East Turkey last week, given that the region was under emergency law. There was a subtle difference between their visit and the visit of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, last July. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was in touch with the British Consul before he went. I had my eye very firmly on what was happening and I remember welcoming him back unscathed to the House thereafter.
Unfortunately, the trade unionists who went did so against the specific advice of the British Government to those who travel in Turkey. I quote from that advice:
"Do not go there"
referring to South-East Turkey, the emergency law area
"unless on essential business, in which case advise the British Embassy in Ankara or the British Consul in Istanbul of your travel plans in advance".
The group informed neither Her Majesty's Government nor the embassy or the consulate in Istanbul. I understand that the group's visit was organised by the Kurdish Solidarity Committee. It was accompanied by two journalists working for a pro-Kurdish newspaper (who were also detained). The group apparently wished to investigate reports that in their attacks on PKK terrorists the Turkish security forces evacuated villages. The group was detained by the security forces some distance from the main regional town, Diyarbakir, on Friday. The group was held overnight and released without charge on Saturday afternoon. The group has now returned to the United Kingdom.
On instructions, our British Ambassador in Ankara has asked the Turkish Government for a full explanation of this incident. He has asked that the relevant local authorities should be reminded that foreign nationals who are detained for whatever reason must be given early access to consular assistance. He has also reminded the Turkish authorities of the need for there to be full respect for all international human rights rules. I shall say no more about the visit. It has served to publicise a situation which we all find totally unacceptable, but it was unwise and it might have resulted in far more difficulty for the individuals involved without advancing the case of the ordinary Kurdish people about which your Lordships' House is so concerned.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I absolutely agree with the action taken by Her Majesty's Government and defined by the noble Baroness. If one is seeking facts, the best thing is to work with the authorities, including our own authorities. I wish to make one point which I did not make in my speech. Although I had informed the British Consulate, and the British Consulate knew what was going on, the Turkish authorities refused to the British Consulate at 3 a.m. access to me and my colleagues. That was quite deplorable.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I was aware of the failure of the Turkish authorities to give
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access to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, by the consular authorities in the early hours of the morning. We have already made our views known on that. But the point that I simply make in the case of last weekend is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, has made—while one would never be welcome by the Turkish authorities in South-East Turkey under the present circumstances, at least the British Embassy might be able to help if things went wrong. That is why prior guidance is helpful for all concerned.
A great deal has been said in this debate which, in one sense, is worthy of repetition, but as time is passing I shall try not to repeat things with which I agree. I agree so much with what the noble Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, said in his speech tonight. I do not believe that there is any difference between us. I shall look very carefully at what he said. We have to find a way of working together to resolve a very unacceptable situation.
My noble friend Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare talked about the behaviour of the local Turkish authorities. I say to him and my noble friend Lady Cox that their behaviour has been quite inconsistent with a country seeking closer relationships and indeed membership of the European Community. We find it very difficult that a good and supportive member of NATO should behave in this way towards her own population. That is an essential problem with which not only Britain but all members of NATO must wrestle.
I believe that the late President of Turkey, Turgut Ozal, was arguably right to describe the situation in Turkey as going beyond the simple dimensions of terrorism and as,
"perhaps the most significant problem in the history of the Republic".
We have had many references to that history in the most interesting speeches tonight. I welcome this debate and the fact that the problem is being discussed not only here but that it is being discussed more openly in Turkey as a result of the pressure from fellow member countries on Turkey.
As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, told us, on his notable visit to the south-east region of Turkey he saw how the people there were caught up in the struggle between the Turkish security forces and the PKK. His most useful report details some of the worst abuses of human rights which continue to be committed by both sides.
Perhaps I may say a word here which echoes what my noble friend Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare said about the PKK. They are involved in attacks on ordinary people as well as on Turkish military and government installations. They are involved in the ambush of security patrols which are actually not doing any harm. They are involved in many other brutal attacks on villages which are believed to be pro-government and which contain innocent civilians. The murder of teachers and government officials in the area is no excuse for the claims that they make. As your Lordships will know, there have been unexplained killings of many civilians, including local politicians and journalists, as a number of noble Lords mentioned. We

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know that acts of torture have been carried out not only by government forces but also by the PKK. That is why there is such concern about the situation in the area.
In March this year the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire. In return they wanted government recognition of the Kurdish identity and language, the release of political prisoners and a general amnesty for PKK members. I believe that in that they were seeking to push forward their efforts to achieve a change in the way in which all these matters are handled. It is very sad that that effort came to naught. There was initially a relatively peaceful period and we hoped that that would continue. But when the ceasefire broke down in June both sides blamed the other. As your Lordships have clearly stated, since then the confrontation in the south-east has deteriorated with the death toll in recent weeks reaching new peaks.
As my noble friend Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare said, it would be a very good thing if something like the Iraq-Kurdistan parliament could be repeated in the Kurdish areas of Turkey. But at the moment I see little hope of that, which I find very sad. Nevertheless, where moderate Kurdish views can be expressed within a country then there is some chance that those people will get their rightful recognition. The difficulty is that those moderate Kurdish views are completely over-shadowed by the terrorist activity which is going on.
I must take this opportunity to condemn the recent fire-bombings of Turkish diplomatic and civilian properties in London and in a number of other European cities. It appears that these were carried out by supporters of the PKK. That organisation does not limit itself to attacks even on the Turkish authorities. As the report of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, showed in so many ways, and as noble Lords have declared tonight, civilians are attacked without provocation and without reason. Earlier this year the PKK attacked Western tourist targets in Turkey, seeking to undermine the income going into that country which the people of south-east Turkey need as much as anybody in terms of investment. I believe that these terrorist attacks show the kind of ruthless opponent against whom the moderates in the Turkish government are struggling. That makes it all the more difficult for those moderates.
In the debate several of your Lordships have spoken about Prime Minister Ciller of Turkey. But as we know well, she does not have a secure position. I believe that she is quite sincere in wishing to make an attempt to revise the 1982 law, but that may well not succeed. But I believe that in the international sphere we may be able to help. That is why we urge the Turkish Government to resolve their problems in the south-east. We urge them to do so in conformity with the norms of governmental behaviour which they have accepted in subscribing to various international conventions. We say to them that the clear evidence of human rights abuses by both sides is cause for justifiable concern by the international community.
In our debate we have heard a good deal about the need for self-determination. We have heard a good deal about CSCE, the United Nations and the Council of Europe. There are various reports and comments to
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which I wish to turn now. The right to self-determination is important to UK foreign policy, but we always balance that alongside other principles such as the principle of the territorial integrity of states. There are various mechanisms within the UN which deal with the issue of self-determination. We believe that these are the mechanisms which should be enforced.
I shall not go into all the detail of the articles of the two basic human rights covenants, but they should be respected. I shall return to that matter in a moment. Turkey is not a state party to the covenants on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. We believe it important that they should be. But we believe that while there are attempts to reach a peaceful and lasting solution on the issues in Turkey we do not support the idea that a group within a state or a minority automatically constitutes a people with a right to self-determination. Any suggestion that such a group might cede without the agreement of the state within which it exists goes against the principle of territorial integrity enshrined in the UN Charter. It is important to understand that clearly when we talk about self-determination.
My noble friend Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare mentioned the Iraqi Kurdish Parliament and underlined the difficulty of any moderate Kurdish view being expressed in Turkey because it is automatically lumped together with all activity which is opposed to the Government. That is why we sincerely hope that elected representatives should be able to give non-violent expression to their beliefs even when they do not agree—as clearly they will not—with some members of the Turkish Government. We have seen promises from the Turkish Government of reforms aimed at greater democracy. I believe that this House and all members of the CSCE urge the Turkish Government to make early progress to achieve that because, if the moderate Kurdish view is allowed to be expressed peaceably in Turkey, the terrorists of the PKK will be isolated—and that is what will protect the civilians to a greater degree than anything else.
My noble friends Lord Brentford and Lady Cox raised the issue of the role of the CSCE in this awful situation and asked what we were trying to do to stop the violations of human rights. On behalf of the European Community and member states, the United Kingdom raised the issue of Turkey's compliance with its CSCE commitments at the Human Dimension Implementation Review meeting in Warsaw between 27th September and 15th October, which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned. Many states criticised Turkey in similar terms.
Although a number of mechanisms are available to the CSCE to investigate violations of Human Dimension commitments, they have not been much used. Some of the measures do not require consensus, so they could not be blocked by any single state. However, the Warsaw meeting, to which I referred, recognised that lack of action and recommended various measures to improve the monitoring of human rights. Most notably, it proposed that non-governmental organisations should be able to inform the CSCE's Office of

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Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of human rights violations, and that that office should have the right to pass on substantiated reports to the CSCE's political bodies, such as the Committee of Senior Officials, which could then decide on the follow-up action to be taken.
However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, recognised, there is a problem: CSCE provisions are not legally enforceable. Yes, they have a moral and political force, but nothing more and, as yet, there is no machinery to ensure that governments who sign up—those who signed up in Copenhagen and those who agreed to other CSCE declarations—actually give effect to or abide by them. There is, therefore, a further step that needs to be taken to rectify that shortcoming.
A number of your Lordships have called for the involvement of the CSCE's High Commissioner for Minorities in these matters. Although I am sympathetic to that idea, I must warn your Lordships that the High Commissioner's mandate precludes him from considering national minority issues even in situations involving organised acts of terrorism. However, given that the Kurdish problem is not only a national problem and that, as my noble friend Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare has pointed out, it is happening in a number of countries, perhaps some way could be evolved to deal with the lack of a mandate in that respect.
The proposal to appoint a UN special rapporteur, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Brentford and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is certainly a possibility because, within the UN system for protecting human rights, a special rapporteur can be appointed for an individual country. That should be done through the Commission on Human Rights. I hope that, if the commission is as concerned as we are at the reports which have been mentioned in your Lordships' House tonight, it will take the first usual step, which is to pass a resolution. As yet, there has been no such resolution on Turkey, but I am sure that, in the light of the Warsaw and Copenhagen meetings, it will not be long before such a resolution comes forward.
My noble friend Lady Cox and the noble Lord, Lord McNair, in their very interesting speeches, asked about national minorities. The House will be aware that the Council of Europe summit in Vienna on 8th and 9th October decided on four main areas to follow-up. The first was to draw up confidence-building measures aimed at increasing tolerance and understanding among peoples. The second was to offer help in negotiating and implementing treaties on matters concerning national minorities. The third was to draft a framework convention, setting out the principles which contracting states would commit themselves to respect in order to assure the protection of national minorities. The fourth was to begin work on a protocol complementing the European Convention on Human Rights in the cultural field with provisions guaranteeing individual rights, particularly for persons belonging to national minorities.
We shall continue, as a Government, to contribute fully to the work of the Council of Europe on national minorities because we recognise the urgency which
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your Lordships have underlined so clearly in tonight's debate. We believe that measures to increase tolerance and mutual understanding must be at the heart of all efforts to solve national minority issues.
In opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about signatories to the Geneva Conventions. I can assure him that not only does the UK uphold the provisions of Common Article 3, but that Turkey, as a state which is party to the Geneva Conventions, is bound to apply the provisions of Common Article 3 during non-international armed conflicts. There is absolutely no debate about where Turkey should stand on that matter. That is also something to be followed through after this debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, as well as—
Lord Avebury: My Lords, before the Minister leaves that point, will she deal with the other question that I raised in this connection, which is whether the ICRC—
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am coming to that.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I am sorry. I see that the Minister is coming to that point.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my next note was to raise the issue of the ICRC, of which both the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, spoke. The UK has always supported the activities of the ICRC, which has a unique role to play here as the guardian of international humanitarian law—not only in upholding, but also in promoting the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols. I believe that the ICRC's impartiality is not only well known and respected but permits it to act as an intermediary in a way that no other body can. I believe that its involvement as a protector of victims of armed conflicts is an important one. It is certainly one that I shall follow up.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I am sorry to have to interrupt the Minister, but there is a secondary point. The ICRC might have a role to play in humanitarian relief operations for the many thousands of people who have been displaced from villages and who are now living without shelter or food in temperatures that are 5 degrees below zero, including those in the village that was mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I had already made a note of that. I shall be following up the humanitarian issues which have been so clearly expressed in this debate and which we have questioned previously. I very much hope that help can be got through, but there must be some agreement in order to deliver that help in the area. We are somewhat too well experienced in trying to get assistance into areas and in being stopped from giving humanitarian assistance for me to be able to give the noble Lord a categorical assurance at this moment.
There is much more that can be said on this very vexed issue. But I can assure your Lordships that we are determined as Foreign Office Ministers and senior officials to continue to stress these points at each

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opportunity when we meet our Turkish colleagues. Other western countries are doing the same. Most recently at the Turkey/EC Association Council in Brussels earlier this month European Union Ministers made clear to the Turkish Foreign Minister their collective anxiety that both sides in the conflict in the south-east should show respect for human rights.
The Turkish Government have made some efforts to improve matters. They passed a new law earlier this year to improve human rights provisions under domestic law. But the task remains to ensure that Turkish police in South-East Turkey abide by the code and that the tight against terrorism is conducted by security forces within the framework of proper respect for domestic and international human rights obligations. It was those issues about which your Lordships expressed such anxiety tonight.
Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and all noble Lords who have taken part in this timely debate and discussion of a difficult issue. I am sure that it will serve to remind the Turkish authorities of the entirely legitimate anxieties in the UK and other western countries. It is appalling that large numbers of innocent
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civilians find themselves caught up in this conflict, threatened by the PKK on the one side, and by the actions of the security forces on the other. We must make clear that moderate Kurdish views should be allowed to find expression within Turkey. That will strengthen the hand of the Turkish Government, in dealing with ruthless terrorists. We in the United Kingdom know that that is far from easy; but the police and the security forces engaged in the conflict in South-East Turkey must abide by the international standards of human rights. We must do all that we can to ensure that the Turkish Government respect human rights in every way.
I hope that a way can soon be found of bringing lasting peace to the region; one which encourages the Kurdish people in the south-east to find their democratic feet; to proceed by peaceful argument and to establish their rights within the Turkish state as a democratic force for good for their people. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate.
House adjourned at eight minutes before seven o'clock.