Lord Mitchell
Member of the House of Lords · Labour · United Kingdom
“In those days, no one quite understood the long-term dangers of radiation, and protection was rudimentary. For him, it was fatal. In 1998, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, which he knew was terminal. He told me, in his usual blunt way, “I know how this story ends and it is not pretty.”
“My Lords, on 9 October 2000, my parents-in-law, Jack and Ruth Lowy, committed joint suicide. He was dying and she had decided to accompany him on this last journey. Jack was born in Bratislava in what was then Czechoslovakia. The family were Jewish and following the events in Munich in 1938, they fled to Philadelphia.”
“My wife in particular sensed that they would carry out their wishes. After all, they were both intelligent people who had carefully thought this through. There was no one to support Jack and no one on hand to help Ruth in what must have been hell for her.”
“I cannot be certain about my mother-in-law’s motivation to join him, but they both knew that his own suicide at home could well run the risk of her being charged with committing a crime as an accomplice. What I do know is that had this Bill been law, she probably would have chosen life.”
“I always felt that the issue of antisemitism on campus did not emanate solely from the students. It also came from the laissez-faire attitude of the faculty.”
“We kept the brief tight, with no references to the Middle East; we judged that there was nothing we could do or say that could make any difference. Where we could definitely make a difference was through reference to our common UK experiences and our heritage. I think we made progress.”
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“If President Ahmadinejad means what he says, then he needs to be resolutely deterred from any mischief making. We need firm and sensitive diplomacy, but we also need to send him a very clear message that if Iran attacks any country the consequences for him and for his country will be severe and appropriate.”
“The noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, makes a plea for patience, but time is running out. Some of those close to the matter believe that Iran will have its own nuclear bomb within the next 12 months. It is also developing ballistic capability. It is reported that Iran has tested rockets with a range of 1,500 km. Put bomb and rocket together, and political posturing no longer looks like rhetoric. Let us look at the targets in Iran's sights. Coalition troops—British, American, Australian and others—are located just across the borders of neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are all within easy target. Finally, there is Israel—a country with no borders with Iran; indeed, a country separated from Iran by two intermediate countries.”
“He absolutely denies that his country has any intention of developing nuclear weapons. But who believes him? Again, is this political posturing or does he mean it? It has been reported that, having made a speech in which he denied that the Holocaust ever happened, President Ahmadinejad's government is this very week sponsoring a competition for the best cartoons depicting the Holocaust, in response to the sad Danish cartoon situation. Again, is this political posturing or does he mean what he says? Finally, President Ahmadinejad says that he wants to promote a world Caliphate to be run by Iran. I ask again, is this political posturing or does he mean it? I do not believe such statements are posturing. I believe them to be true. If they are true, we certainly have a very serious problem on our hands.”
“My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell. This debate is both timely and vital. The Minister will be delighted to know that my speech will be brief. Four simple questions need to be asked about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On two occasions, he has stated that Iran will wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. For the first time, one member of the United Nations is advocating the total annihilation of another member. Is this political posturing, or does he mean it? He has said that Iran is developing nuclear technology because Iranians need the capability to produce nuclear power, but Iran is a country swimming in oil. Why would it be making tremendous sacrifices to develop a technology that it could not conceivably need for 50 years?”
“Sadly, most of it has been siphoned off to pals and cronies; such is the Arafat legacy. If Hamas wins the election, it will have done it through the democratic process. If we advocate democracy throughout the Middle East, we must welcome the process, even if we are not happy with the result. Hamas may be terrorists, but they will be elected terrorists. In Israel, the most likely new Prime Minister is Ehud Olmert. He will continue the Sharon plan of gradual disengagement from the West Bank and the quest for peace. To succeed, both parties need strong leaders. Will they appear? I hope so.”
“My Lords, within the week we will know the result of the Palestinian election, and within nine weeks we will know the result of the Israeli election. My guess is that, by the end of March, both the Palestinians and the Israelis will have new governments run by parties that have never previously held office. The real prospect of Hamas winning the Palestinian election is worrying, and is causing Israelis and many in the West very deep misgivings. After all, Hamas has been the prime exponent of the suicide bombings that have killed so many Israelis. But within Palestine, Hamas has grown in stature. Its members are seen as the incorruptibles in a very corrupt society. Palestine suffers some of the most acute poverty and worst unemployment in the world, despite the fact that the PA has been given £6 billion in international aid.”
“Again, can the Minister please help me to understand what organisational changes have been made within government to plan for a pandemic? We started our report with the statement that the United Kingdom was better prepared than most for the outbreak of a pandemic. I am sure that that is true, but we cannot afford to let matters slip. I, along with other noble Lords, I am sure, will be looking to the Minister for reassurances that, quietly but effectively, plans are in place to avoid some of the potential ravages that could well ensue.”
“It became clear that the Department of Health by itself was not the body to co-ordinate a national response to an outbreak of pandemic influenza. This issue is simply too wide for a department with other priorities on its plate. To us it was evident that there needs to be a cross-government initiative to deal with all aspects of an outbreak and, indeed, a person responsible across government to do so. We recommended that, "the development and implementation of contingency plans should be the responsibility of a Cabinet-level Minister for contingency and disaster planning located within the Cabinet Office". The day before our report was published, as the noble Lord, Lord Broers, has just said, there was an announcement that some government co-ordination action was being taken, but it was far from clear to me exactly what that action was.”
“So just imagine what it would be like if there was a full-blooded pandemic. Are we prepared? Recently, I read that retailers and supermarket executives have been getting together and making plans for such an eventuality. Is my noble friend able to shed any light on this development? Most people in this country are employed by small and medium-sized businesses. How will these cope in an emergency? I run a company of 120 people. No one has contacted us about how we should prepare for a pandemic. Yet again, I ask: what plans do the Government have in hand to alert smaller businesses on how to cope? One of the recommendations we debated at length centred on government organisation to deal with a pandemic.”
“And, gruesome though the subject is, anticipation that 3 per cent of all people who contract avian flu would die is another consideration that we would have to make. I know it is easy to get carried away and perhaps to overstate the case, but my views are coloured by the petrol crisis in 2000. We live in a world of minimal stockholding. Companies cut costs by cutting their inventories. "Just in time" is the watchword of inventory control. Of course it leads to economies of scale, which is good for business, but it also places everything on a knife-edge, which is bad when panic reigns. To me, the lesson of the petrol crisis is how fragile our economic and distribution systems are and how quickly they can all break down. Every time there is a minor threat to petrol supplies, there is panic buying.”
“If there is a pandemic, in this country we could expect 25 per cent—some people expect up to 40 per cent—of the workforce to be struck down at any time. That would include 25 per cent of people across the board: 25 per cent of your Lordships' House; 25 per cent of Cabinet Ministers, policemen, teachers, doctors, nurses, cleaners or whoever; and, of course, mothers and fathers. But also it would include 25 per cent of lorry drivers who transport food to supermarkets, unloaders, stackers, checkout attendants and power workers. Throughout the nation we would be in an acute emergency. How would food be delivered? How would it be allocated? Who would go to a supermarket and run the risk of contagion? Yet, we would need food and other provisions. We would run the real risk of a panic and economic shutdown.”
“I would be interested in the Minister's response. When my honourable friend Mrs Winterton gave evidence to the sub-committee I pushed her on the subject of information systems. My background is in information technology and I have the simplistic belief that without the information and numbers, it is hard to deal with any problem, especially any problem on such a scale. I have to say that I was surprised at the Minister's somewhat vague response to my questions. So I ask again: do we have fast and effective information systems in place that will enable those people who are dealing with a pandemic to respond quickly as the situation changes? We make a key point in the report, which has not readily been taken up elsewhere.”
“We need to imagine what a pandemic would look like in our own country and then what it would look like throughout the world. As I have said, in Britain we predict that at its peak there could be more than 1 million new cases of influenza each day. We forecast that the number of GP consultations could increase more than 1,000 times and that hospitals would be totally overwhelmed. That would be at a time when illness-related absenteeism as a result of the virus could be expected to be more than 20 per cent. The chaos that would result in our health service would be enormous. Quite simply, it would be close to collapse. The responsibility for co-ordinating the health service response in England and Wales lies with the Health Protection Agency, but its funding has been cut in recent years. Is that wise? Is it a responsible move?”
“If that is so, we had better be very well prepared. We have been told that, in our country alone, we can expect at its peak up to 1 million new incidents of the virus each day—a number that sends shivers down my spine. Such a consequence could be catastrophic for ours and every nation. To date, the only way to arrest the virus is by taking antivirals, and even that is not proved. But I would like to pose a question to the Minister. Why have we chosen to order 14 million doses of the antiviral, Tamiflu? Why not less or why not more? If the antiviral is effective, surely we need to ensure that every person in this country will be able to get the medicine. We need complete coverage, which means that every person in the country needs to be able to get the antiviral from their doctor.”
“But we know that if this disease indeed goes critical, we on this planet will experience a fairly gruesome time. I shall confine my comments to something that we all hope will never happen—that this disease turns into a pandemic. How equipped are we to respond? The single event in our collection of evidence that alarmed me most was a PowerPoint presentation that we were shown indicating how the pandemic would spread throughout the world. We saw a map of Vietnam turning rapidly red by the day as the disease spread and how that would be repeated throughout the world. I think that I am right in saying that from the moment the virus becomes transmittable between humans and has infected 50 people in one location, it will be only a few months until the whole world is affected by a pandemic. It is unstoppable.”
“I must admit that people who I regard in high repute have amazed me with their cynical response to this subject. Those of us who have been more closely involved with the dangers of the H5N1 virus are not able to share these views. Panic, we should not; but respond with some sense of urgency, we certainly should. I am concerned that the Government are not responding with such urgency and I am hoping to be reassured on that matter. The problem for us all is that there is a question that we cannot answer in the simple way that most people want. The question is "When?". When is this pandemic due to happen? The truth is, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Broers, said, that we simply do not know. Some say, however, that it is only a matter of time.”
“There was an in-built urgency in the subject of avian flu pandemic that drove the pace of this report. I hope that the Government's response will be equally timely and equally well thought out. I suspect that the comments that I received from my personal friends and colleagues on this subject reflect similar attitudes amongst the population at large. The response that I received goes something like this: "It is all hysteria cooked up by the media. Look at what happened to SARS, AIDS, BSE or foot and mouth. Look at the millennium bug or asteroids hitting the Earth; important, yes, but no need to get into a sweat implying the end of the world". They tell me, "After all, over 1 million people die each year in the world from ordinary flu. Ought we to worry about the 73 people who have died so far from H5N1?".”
“My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Broers, for introducing this debate so soon after our report was published. It is often said that if you want a job done well, give it to a busy man. The noble Lord, Lord Broers, is indeed that busy man and he has certainly done the job well. Your Lordships' House should commend the noble Lord for the excellent and speedy way in which he chaired and expedited this report. I have sat on several science and technology investigations and we have prepared our reports in the usual way, but this one has impressed me most in its conciseness, its comprehensiveness and its hard-hitting and well thought out conclusions. It was a privilege to work with the noble Lord, Lord Broers, other noble Lords and the team in the department. Of course, the subject matter helped.”
“What better and more practical way could there be to make a positive and lasting contribution towards peace and understanding in this deeply divided area than for us to take such a bold and positive step?”
“I would like them to seize this moment and introduce a bold initiative that could bring hope to all. Many of our universities lead the world, particularly in science and technology. As part of our country's contribution to the Middle East peace process, why do we not launch a British-sponsored international science and technology initiative? There could be a programme designed to encourage our universities to collaborate in joint regional projects with Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab academic centres. Studies could be conducted based on water technology, water-borne diseases, desert agriculture and environmental issues; and why not even archaeology? It would benefit the Arabs and the Israelis, and it is something that our universities could do so well. But it cannot happen without a Government initiative.”
“Why does it pick on the only democracy in the region? Is it not just one more example of the pervasive double standard—blame Israel for everything and turn a blind eye to everywhere else? What can we do to help? Tomorrow morning, the AUT will reconsider its motion. I fervently hope that the delegates will think again and vote against the boycott. I call on them to heed the 20 Nobel laureates and more than 45,000 members of the public who have signed an Internet petition urging that the boycott motion be defeated. I call on the university authorities, the chancellors, the vice-chancellors and the administrators to start speaking out loudly against that type of prejudice. Some have been to the forefront in condemnation, but too many others have been mealy-mouthed. Finally, I call on our Government.”
“Both leaders face civil strife, and both are under threat for their lives. But the mood, while fragile, is also cautiously optimistic. One thing is certain: the participants need all the help that we can give. Equally certain is the fact that misconstrued boycotts hinder rather than help. I have listened to what the AUT has to say, but I am still left with one nagging question: why is the boycott solely directed at Israel? Why is it not directed at universities in China, when that country still occupies Tibet and persecutes its students; or why not at Russia for its continuing butchery in Muslim Chechnya; or why not Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Syria, which allow no student dissent whatever? When the AUT executive is handing out its boycott notices, why are not those, and a hundred other totalitarian countries like them, also included?”
“"Our disaffection with, and condemnation of acts of academic boycotts and discrimination against scholars and institutions, is predicated on the principles of academic freedom, human rights, and equality between nations and among individuals". It would seem to me that the AUT has seriously misjudged its target. I also believe that it has misjudged its timing. Hesitantly, but with determination, the peace process in the Middle East moves forward. Against domestic resistance that we often underestimate, Prime Minister Sharon is set on a course to evacuate Gaza in the next few months. Similarly, in the face of constant internal hostility, President Abbas is trying to bring order to his fractious community. For those two men and their respective communities, the going is tough.”
“Last week, at the Royal Society in London, an important joint declaration was made. It stated: "Cognizant of the moral leadership universities should provide, especially in already turbulent political contexts, we, the President of Al-Quds University and the President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have agreed to insist on continuing to work together in the pursuit of knowledge, for the benefit of our peoples and the promotion of peace and justice in the Middle East. "Our position is based upon the belief that it is through cooperation based on mutual respect, rather than through boycotts and discrimination, that our common goals can be achieved.”
“The institute, like so many other Israeli universities, is right at the forefront in working closely with other universities in Arab countries, with the specific aim of improving the region for all. For example, there is a joint Egyptian-American-Israeli project designed to combat parasitic weeds that devastate agriculture. Also in the area of plant research, there is a joint study with Egypt and Jordan within the framework of the National Plant Genome Centre. The goal is to accelerate the breeding of crops adapted to regional conditions. I could also cite the Ben-Gurion University, the Hebrew University and Haifa itself to show how Israelis and Arabs are co-operating and getting on with the business of making life better for all. They do that in medicine, genetics, agriculture and even archaeology.”
“Nowhere is intellectual debate and rigorous discussion more intense than on the Israeli campuses. Nowhere is the pursuit of peace and the necessity of a two-state solution more forcefully articulated than in the gardens and canteens of those universities. That is where the Israeli peace movement is most active, so for the AUT to single out those institutions for boycott is totally misguided. It has implied that Israeli universities are no-go areas for Arab students. That simply is not true. Haifa University has 20 per cent Arab students, and many Arabs are on the faculty. The Weizmann Institute has an eminent Arab professor and many Arab research students—both Israeli Arab and Palestinian.”
“Perhaps the Minister will add his voice to those calls in his wind-up speech. Now there is another development, which again indicates that our campuses are becoming uncomfortable for Jews. In the past few weeks, the Association of University Teachers has taken the decision to boycott two Israeli universities—Haifa and Bar-Ilan—with further threats to ban two others, including the Weizmann Institute. Here I must declare an interest: I am chair of Weizmann UK, and I serve on the executive council of that institute in Israel. Whatever Israel may or may not be, it is not a monolithic state. Everyone is opinionated on every subject under the sun. As the old adage goes, every time you get two Israelis together, they have three opinions. That certainly holds true. If you want vibrant democracy, that is the place to go.”
“On an anecdotal basis, friends tell me that their sons and daughters at university are subject to hostility because they support Jewish causes and, in particular, when they express their support for Israel. Of course, that has increased since 9/11. The issue was addressed in the impressive report of the Home Affairs Select Committee prepared in another place on terrorism and community relations. Having received evidence from a number of sources, including representatives of both the Jewish and Muslim communities, it expressed its concern about the level of anti-Semitism on campuses. It urged the university authorities to act swiftly when such problems were brought to their attention and reminded them of their duties under the Race Relations Act 1976 and its applicability to student unions.”
“But consider this gem from the streets of Hackney: the local estate agents now take pride when they have a house for sale located in the Mossbourne catchment area. They know a good thing when they see one. That academy, and those like it, are a positive force for good. I concentrate my words today on a disturbing trend that is becoming increasingly present on some of our university campuses. In raising this matter in your Lordships' House, I am conscious of how easy it is to exaggerate, so I choose my words carefully. I am talking about a growing trend of anti-Jewish outbursts. I am Jewish, but I am generally slow to rise to the bait of prejudice. Such things can so often be misjudged by oversensitive souls, but the signs are worrying.”
“It is sponsored by a good friend of mine, Sir Clive Bourne, who himself is no slouch in getting things done, and I have seen the creation of something visionary and inspirational in an area where vision and inspiration have been in short supply. The building is stunning; the layout is well designed; and, for a high-tech person such as myself, it is a joy to see state-of-the-art equipment being used by all the children throughout the school. The school lunches are not only edible but tasty—I have sampled them myself—and, in the school, the children eat fruit and vegetables. It is obvious to even the most casual observer that the children are disciplined and enthusiastic; the teachers are motivated; but, most of all, the parents now have hope where once there was only despair. Of course, there are doubters; there always are.”
“My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt on his return to the Front Benches—he has been sorely missed—and my noble friend Lord Warner on his new position. Most of all, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Adonis on his wide-ranging maiden speech and on his appointment as Minister for Schools. The press have had a field day over his appointment, but he has borne the criticism with good grace and humour. The academy schools project has been championed by my noble friend for many years. When the history books are written, academy schools will feature as one of the key new Labour initiatives that changed secondary education in this country for ever and for the better. For that, my noble friend will deserve every credit. Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney is one such school.”