Results 1-20 of 6,369 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Kim Howells

Debate on the Address: Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence (23 Nov 2009)

Kim Howells: It is a privilege to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), as ever. He is right to focus on my proposal that we should reinvent ourselves diplomatically. I sense that in the country there is increasing unease about the way in which we use our armed forces and why they are deployed. I am glad to see that over the past fortnight a debate on...

Debate on the Address: Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence (23 Nov 2009)

Kim Howells: I am certainly not making this speech or writing anything on behalf of the Intelligence and Security Committee; I can tell my hon. Friend that for a kick-off. There are significant differences between the aims of the Afghan Taliban and their brother organisation in Pakistan, and al-Qaeda. The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are fighting to take control of their respective countries, while...

Debate on the Address: Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence (23 Nov 2009)

Kim Howells: Will the hon. Gentleman take it from me that after a particularly fierce battle to the west of Kandahar in the red desert, one officer-on our side, as it happens-told me that one Afghan detachment had changed sides three times in 24 hours? I do not know how many bribes were offered to that detachment, but is he saying that good British generals should be bribing Afghans not to fight each...

Energy and Climate Change: River Severn Estuary (Barrage) (9 Jul 2009) has video

Kim Howells: My hon. Friend will forgive me for saying that I have been hearing such statements for at least 30 years. I would very much like to know his opinion of the two technologies that seem to be emerging. One is a 10-mile barrage across the Severn and the other is the building of tidal lagoons. Which does he think will offer the best value for money, which will do the least environmental damage and...

Business of the House: UK Climate Projections (18 Jun 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on an impressive, timely and comprehensive statement. May I urge him and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to resist the temptation to cover the superb wild uplands of Wales and other beautiful parts of this country with thousands of wind generators, not one of which would be built without a direct or indirect subsidy...

Gangmasters Licensing Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill: Clause 2 — Amendments of the United Nations Personnel Act 1997 (10 Jun 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I am sorry to interrupt again on this point, but it is very important. I have been in some of the armpits of the world and have seen UN peace builders and keepers doing amazing work, but they have been able to do that work only because they have had NATO personnel guarding them. How does one differentiate a UN worker—they are clearly defined in the schedules and the original...

Gangmasters Licensing Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill: Clause 2 — Amendments of the United Nations Personnel Act 1997 (10 Jun 2009) has video

Kim Howells: My hon. Friend just read out a long list of countries, some of which I found very surprising. Mali, for one, has a Government who are trying to combat terrorism and is the recipient of help from the UN and other bodies. It is also where we have just seen the al-Qaeda murder of a British citizen. In a situation such as that in Afghanistan, where the mission is UN-led but has all manner of...

Gangmasters Licensing Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill: Clause 1 — Amendments of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 (10 Jun 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I am fascinated by the hon. Gentleman's historical lesson, which is very instructive, but I want to tease something out of him. Is he worried about the possibility that iconoclastic leaders such as Chavez, Ahmadinejad or Kim Il Jung would want their own symbols for nationalistic purposes and to reinforce their independence? Is that the sort of proliferation that he is worried about?

Gangmasters Licensing Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill: Clause 1 — Amendments of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 (10 Jun 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new position. It is a very important one, and I know that he will do an excellent job. May I ask my hon. Friend to clear up some of the nuts and bolts of the matter? If three symbols will be accepted, that does not mean, does it, that nations will be able to pick and choose which of the three they will allow people to use to visit political prisoners, for...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I would not like to clarify that.

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I have had the privilege of chairing the Intelligence and Security Committee since October last year and this is the first opportunity I have had to talk about the work of the Committee before the House. I believe that this is the first time that such a debate has been opened by the Committee Chairman. I have been asked by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: Every time I think of the hon. Gentleman, I think of his brother, who was so cruelly taken from his family by the terrible bombing in Bali. It is not the Committee's place to comment on compensation, but I assure him that a great many of us think about the subject, and I would like to see some of the unjustified disparities reduced. The current threat from international terrorism is assessed...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the gravity of the threat of cyber attack— [Interruption.] If he will contain himself for a moment and not explode on his bit of the Front Bench, I will tell him that we will report on cyber attack in our next annual report. I am sure he will be satisfied with that. The Committee expressed concern that the necessary focus on counter-terrorism...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I shall deal with her point in a moment, if she will be patient. It is important to note that the membership of the Committee reflects the full range of attitudes taken by most people who think about intelligence and security matters. The Committee's members bring to its deliberations something additional and, in my view, something special. All...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: Yes, and I can tell my hon. Friend that the Committee is thinking very seriously about how we can conduct such public sessions. It will not be easy. If we ask questions about operations or intelligence which, by their very nature, are secret and must remain secret, we shall certainly not be able to do so in public, and if we ask questions that do not relate to such matters and that can be...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I will not give way again, because I know that many right hon. and hon. Members are waiting to speak. In referring to the Committee's membership, I have given some of the reasons for the fact that it is the least leaky Committee, and the least prone to allowing party politics to colour the commentary on its reports and its albeit rare public pronouncements. I hope that I shall be allowed to...

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I agree with every word of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's analysis. He is absolutely right, and that issue of trust is central to the points I am making.

Intelligence and Security Committee (7 May 2009) has video

Kim Howells: Yes, that is absolutely true, although I do not believe for one minute that any of this is cut and dried and crystal clear, because it never is. There are intelligence agencies across the world that we believe we can trust, but which for whatever reason—my hon. Friend used the term "inadvertently"—have been guilty of contravening some of the Geneva conventions. That has indeed...

Opposition Day — [10th Allotted Day]: Sri Lanka (29 Apr 2009) has video

Kim Howells: I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said so far, but does he agree that it is very difficult for a state to put pressure on a non-state player, which is what the LTTE is? It has had a murderous history; it reinvented suicide bombings, and it has killed very many people. The Tamil people are ill served by it. I hope that he will tell us how such an organisation can be...

Business of the House (2 Apr 2009) has video

Kim Howells: The Leader of the House will be aware of the growing problem of film piracy and intellectual property theft in the entertainment industry, which is one of the country's most important employers and earners of foreign currency. In 2007, film piracy alone cost the UK film and television industry a staggering £486 million—money that could have been put to better use funding British...