23/06/2023 | 12:23:40 Thank you very much indeed Madam Chair and colleagues who have had the courage and stamina to remain this long in the House. I sit on a committee in the House of Lords, a select committee. The genius is it's bipartisan and it consists of experts in their field. The committee I sit on is for communications and digital. Our last report was called "Regulating the Regulators". The current one, nearly complete, is on digital exclusion. The one we're about to begin will be on artificial... 23/06/2023 | 10:22:08 Thank you, Chair and members. Just a word to add support from our group to what has just been said about the case of Mr Julian Assange and also to do it from the point of view of a speaker, not only for my group but for my country. It is scandalous. It needs to be dealt with in a humane and humanitarian way. I am very grateful to Sir Christopher CHOPE for bringing together this report and so many instances and categories, many of which one knew about in bits and pieces through the news that... 21/06/2023 | 19:39:45 Madam Chair and friends and colleagues, This is such an important matter that we are looking at. I really want to thank the person who has put this together. It is a lot of really hard work. I am so glad that it is a voice outside the United Kingdom that has brought these matters in such a focused way to our attention. And I want to compliment you, as indeed did Ms Ruth JONES earlier, on the hard work that you have done. Of course, it is a difficult subject. I, like Lord Richard KEEN, am a... 25/01/2023 | 17:57:54 Dear Chair and to all those who've spoken thus far, The leader of my political group, Mr Frank SCHWABE, sitting quietly there, has listed the countries that have not yet ratified the Istanbul Convention. A year ago he would have added the United Kingdom to that list. The leader of our British delegation, another man, both have stepped outside the man box for the purposes of this debate. Mr John HOWELL has been a champion of getting the United Kingdom government to ratify the Istanbul... 24/01/2023 | 11:03:04 Chairman and colleagues, It is a duty to stand amongst others in response to this extraordinary report. I'd share with all those who thus far have highlighted just how horrible the plight of women is when used in this particular way. Also I'd want to echo all of those who expressed a determination to bring the perpetrators of these dreadful deeds to justice - nothing less could suffice. However there is just one point I'd want to make beyond those two aspects of what's before us right now. In... 23/01/2023 | 17:01:47 Madam Chair and Colleagues, I have listened to the debate very intently and have been alarmed by the repeated descriptions of the camps in which tens of thousands of people are simply left basically to rot. If we could think that Guantanamo was itself a denial of human rights, then it's not far removed from that to ask the same question about people who without hope, without horizons, without perspectives must face the rest of their lives, it seems, to be in these camps with the dreadful... 13/10/2022 | 16:37:01 Chair and Colleagues, Four out of the five people speaking for political groups, and six out of twelve on the rest of the list, have direct involvement in the events we are discussing. I would be surprised if any of them, whichever part of the political spectrum they come from, would disagree with the fact that we must safeguard the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement at all costs. Nothing to discuss there. It's pure speculation to suppose that any one of us would allow that to happen. In... 12/10/2022 | 19:34:59 Chair and Colleagues, I find it a little frustrating standing here and having heard so many people with wilful or wilfully self-deluding understandings of the definition of a refugee. I thought that we all knew what that meant, and that we all knew that we had our various countries subscribed to laws incorporating them within our domestic law, to accept the right of individuals as refugees to reach our shores. I'm delighted that refoulement is receiving the accent that it is receiving, the... 11/10/2022 | 18:52:55 Madam Chair and Colleagues, It's a privilege to take part in this debate, and I hear the variety of points of view being expressed as we seek to find our way to a statement that will give all of us a baseline from which to take action in the future. I endorse the line of action that's recommended and hope sincerely that it will carry the day at the end of this debate. I'm a religious leader in the United Kingdom and have worked extensively with Muslims in a variety of ways. For 20 years... 23/06/2022 | 16:31:34 Thank you, Chair. I need not detain the members who have been gracious enough to give me time beyond time for very long. I'd like to begin by a word of tribute to Mr John HOWELL for being there, and as our leader of the British delegation. A word of tribute because he's actually there, the only member of the Conservative governing party who's turned up. Those of us who have spoken from the United Kingdom are all from the Labour opposing side of the British Parliament, and it's a sad comment...