My Lords, we are regular visitors to Damascus through the special representative for Syria and recent visits from the Minister for the Middle East and the former Foreign Secretary. We continue to engage with the new Syrian Government and have committed to supporting them in delivering a more stable, free and prosperous future for the Syrian people. We are exploring options for a more permanent presence in Damascus and how we can engage further.
I thank my noble friend for that response, and I note the positive tone. She will be aware the President Trump has already met twice with President al-Sharaa, most recently at the White House last month. She will also know that Germany, Italy and Spain are among 12 European countries that have already re-established diplomatic relations, but that none of the permanent members of the UN Security Council has done so. May I suggest it would be a way of further enhancing the Prime Minister’s reputation on the international stage if he were to do so on behalf of his Government, and to encourage the other permanent members to do so also?
I take my noble friend’s question as a note of encouragement to the Government to accelerate progress towards establishing a presence in Damascus and to go further than we already have in the relationship we are building with the new Government in Syria. I also thank him for his kind comments about the Prime Minister’s standing on the world stage; I think he is right.
While thanking the Minister for her helpful reply, may I ask her to consider maintaining the very strong embassy we have in Lebanon? At the moment, you go to Damascus, as I have done recently, through Lebanon. We have a magnificent Foreign Office team there, many of whom also served in Baghdad. This embassy is a very strong hub for all our Middle East work. Would the Minister consider continuing to strengthen that, despite the supposed weakness of FCDO funding, which we would all regret?
As the noble Baroness said, we have an incredibly strong team in Lebanon, and it is important that that continues. The points she makes about the need for a regional approach, the instability we want to avoid and the importance of our presence across the region are well made; I take those and agree with her.
My Lords, can the Minister explain how UK spending in Syria is helping to build stability and tackle humanitarian crises? What steps are required to reopen the embassy, given that Syria has reopened its embassy in London? Can she also explain how the Government can maintain support for Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and still maintain significant engagement with sub-Saharan Africa?
There was a lot in that question. On the humanitarian question, we do not work directly on humanitarian issues through the Government in Syria, for reasons I think noble Lords will understand, but through NGOs and the United Nations. At the moment, that is the right approach to take. We look forward to a time when we can have a more normalised presence in Damascus and all the things you would normally associate with the government-to-government and diplomatic relations we seek.
On how we can spend the same in Syria while protecting Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza—and of course the Overseas Territories—the truth is that we cannot. But in a modern development partnership, the test of your effectiveness and impact is not the pound sign next to your ODA budget; it is the quality of your relationships, your diplomatic presence, your defence and security relationships, and your political links. All these things matter hugely. The volume of spend we are able to mobilise through the multilateral system, not least the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, far exceeds anything we could ever have put forward as a bilateral ODA programme.
My Lords, the US reopened the ambassador’s residence in Damascus some seven months ago. The UK Government, as the noble Baroness has said, are taking a somewhat more circumspect approach. Can she outline the reasons for that? Is it based on legal advice? For what reasons are Ministers hesitant to proceed?
It is not based on legal advice as far as I am aware; I think it is just about making sure we do things in successful and sustainable way. It shows the reason why we are so reluctant to withdraw from a city or a country; once you have withdrawn and no longer have an embassy, it is very difficult and always takes time to re-establish that presence.
UNHCR maintains that there are 16 million Syrians in Syria in need of humanitarian assistance. UK charities are seeking to help. Does the Minister agree that it would help them if we reopened the embassy in Damascus?
I think everybody agrees that it would be a positive step, but we do have a special representative in Syria, Ann Snow. As I say, we continue because, as the noble Lord says, there is still huge humanitarian need in Syria. I was in Jordan recently, speaking to Syrian refugees who would like to return home, but they want to feel that they would be safe and secure, that education would be available for their children and that healthcare would be available. In too many parts of Syria, that is still not the situation, so there is a huge amount of work to do and we continue to play our full part in rebuilding Syria.
We are, of course, and we take our counterterrorism work in Syria and elsewhere incredibly seriously. One of the best things we can do for Syria and the wider region is to do everything we can to make sure that Syria has a stable Government with inclusive politics, and that the improvements we are seeing continue. This is the best chance we have had for Syria in a very long time, and we need to work collaboratively with our partners and allies on the threats the noble Lord refers to, as he would expect. But vital to this is maintaining a secure and stable Government in Syria.
My Lords, in the context of the rise of ISIS again in Somalia and jihadism throughout the region, will the noble Baroness say something about the position of minorities in Syria, who have suffered genocide in the past? Recent attacks on Alawites and Druze in particular should give cause for concern. Will she make it a priority of our diplomatic presence in Damascus that we champion the position of the minorities, guaranteeing the real long-term stability of that country?
That is a very important point. We were deeply concerned, as I know Members were across this House, about some of the events we saw last summer, particularly the targeting of the Alawite and Druze communities, as the noble Lord says. We are very clear with the Government in Syria about our commitment to freedom of religion or belief, and that we expect the new Government to be inclusive and representative and to take actions we would all expect them to take when we see breaches and when things occur that need to be responded to. The Government need to take a leading role in making sure that this sort of violence and victimisation is not allowed to persist in Syria.
My Lords, the Minister mentioned the millions of Syrians who are refugees in other countries, and we know that a significant number of them have attempted to get to this country by one means or another. Given His Majesty’s Government’s current policy on immigrants, legal and irregular, does that not give them a real incentive to invest in making Syria not only a more stable country but one with greater respect for human rights—particularly rights for women—and social stability?