The HALO Trust Chair on Lord Speaker’s Corner Podcast
Jonathan Evans, Lord Evans of Weardale, joined HALO’s Board as Chair in 2023 following a distinguished career as Director General of MI5 and Chair of the Committee in Standards in Public Life (CSPL).
He tells Lord McFall of Alcuith about joining MI5 just 10 days before the September 11 attacks and discusses his counterintelligence work in the subsequent years. In addition to reflecting on his role as Chair of the CSPL, Jonathan talks about HALO’s work and his recent visit to a minefield in Angola. He explains how landmines continue to cause harm decades after they were laid and how the charity’s work can have a stabilising effect because it helps people rebuild their lives. He also discusses HALO’s increasing focus on securing weapons as part of its humanitarian mission to help communities recover and prosper after war.
“I think the fact that we are operating in so many countries demonstrates that conflict is one of the big drivers of problems in the world, one of the biggest humanitarian challenges in the world. We have a big presence in Ukraine. We've got a presence in Afghanistan. We've got a presence in Angola, in Cambodia, in Laos, all sorts of countries. Our purpose in being there is fundamentally to provide humanitarian support, particularly in hazardous areas in order to ensure that people can rebuild. That also means that countries are able to thrive. The stabilising effects of this on communities, I think are really positive.”
