Queen’s Speech

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Lord Ricketts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, noble Lords might be familiar with the Haydn symphony in which, towards the end of the last movement, one by one the musicians walk out until nobody is left—so I am very grateful to all noble Lords who will soldier through to the end of this movement, which I hope will not be too long. However, we are discussing serious issues and I want to make a brief contribution.

I shall start with a general proposition. Successful negotiations are usually those where there is a degree of confidence and mutual trust between the negotiating parties, and the gracious Speech does indeed declare at the outset the ambition for,

“a new partnership with the European Union, based on … friendly co-operation”.

That is excellent—but I fail to understand how it is compatible with the behaviour of the Government in their first two months. All the rhetoric about surrender Bills, betrayal and do or die, culminating in the memo from the Prime Minister’s office to the Spectator, which is the most disgraceful document that I have seen emanating from No. 10 in my 45 years, sends a none-too-subtle message to our EU partners that they are enemies. They are not our enemies; they are our allies, our friends and our economic partners. They are countries for which generations of British soldiers have fought and died. We do not need to fabricate new enemies in the world; there are plenty of adversaries out there already.

Now, those same Europeans who have been treated to that language are the ones with whom the Government are seeking urgently to finalise a deal. As with the previous Government, the closer a potential cliff edge comes, the harder the Government work to avoid it. That is welcome, but the tactics of the first two months have not made our task any easier.

A lot has been made in recent weeks in public about the preparations for a no-deal Brexit. The £100 million spent on that has brought to people’s attention some of the myriad disadvantages of leaving the EU with no deal. I am sure that the National Audit Office will have some penetrating questions to ask the accounting officer who signed off on that spending, as indeed I think it will about the other £8.2 billion—I think that that was the figure the Minister mentioned in opening—that has been allocated to preparations for no deal. Personally, I doubt very much that that spending will make much difference to what will happen if we crash out of the EU with no deal. I do not believe that it bluffed the EU countries for one moment; they had worked out long ago that a no-deal departure would be far more damaging to this country than it would to the EU, although all would suffer.

So I agree with noble Lords who said that a deal is better than a no-deal crash-out—but, equally, we should be absolutely clear that what is on offer, as we understand it from what has come out of the negotiations, is a harder Brexit overall than was proposed by Theresa May’s Government. Given that the level playing field provisions—the regulatory and customs provisions—seem to be on their way out, the destination is then a Canada-minus agreement, largely focused on goods, leaving the services sector to look after itself. That is so far from what was ever proposed in the referendum campaign by the leave side that I am convinced it would be right to put back to the people the option of choosing either the deal that may emerge from these negotiations in the coming days and weeks or, finally, staying in the EU.

I want to concentrate mainly on foreign policy. As so often in my career, I find that my thunder was stolen by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in his brilliant and wide-ranging speech. I will just add a couple of grace notes to what he said. Like him, I found that my eye was caught by the phrase in the gracious Speech that the Government,

“will ensure that it continues to play a leading role in global affairs”.

I cannot think of any major international issue at the moment where Britain is playing a leading role or, indeed, having any discernible impact at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not mention Iran; he left me that one issue to raise. On Iran, the united western approach that was developed rather successfully by the six powers came apart not because of anything that Britain did but because President Trump decided to pull the United States out of the nuclear deal. The only initiative that I am aware of since that time to try to bring the United States and Iran into some kind of dialogue was taken by President Macron at the G7 summit. He did get some momentum going—enough, it seems, to have worried the Revolutionary Guard sufficiently for it to have carried out its very dangerous and escalatory attack on Saudi oilfields. Remarkably, Iran seems largely to have got away with that. I fear that the impunity that the hardliners in Iran will feel as a result of the—as they would see it—successful provocation of the international community must make the Gulf region more dangerous in the future.

Britain’s contribution to the Iranian crisis, as far as one can see from the outside, has not been stellar. We detained an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar; then we let it go and watched powerlessly as it delivered its cargo of oil to Syria. The US “maximum pressure” strategy has failed, and I would be interested to know whether Britain has any ideas about what might replace it.

A number of noble Lords have raised the appalling events that are happening in north-eastern Syria, triggered by another of President Trump’s initiatives: the withdrawal of US forces from that part of the world. I worry that the Turkish invasion is a prelude to a population movement of Syrian refugees now in Turkey into what were Kurdish areas of north-eastern Syria. If that is true, it is storing up more instability and chaos for the future. We know that the West pays the price, in relation both to refugees and terrorism, from instability in that part of the word.

The Foreign Secretary’s Statement in the other place today suggests something I would welcome. I think it is playing catch-up with decisions already taken in Washington, Berlin and Paris to put sanctions on the Turkish Government. The western response so far has seemed disjointed and not very powerful. If we are a country that still has an ambition for a global role, it is perhaps time that we took the initiative to get some more coherence into western strategy. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary should invite the US, German and French Foreign Ministers for a four-power meeting in London to try to map out a rather more co-ordinated approach. Perhaps they should then involve the Russians. As other speakers have said, Russia has major interests and probably more influence in the area than any of us at the moment. This is not a straightforward crisis for Russia either. Russia is allied with President’s Assad’s regime but also building a relationship with Ankara, including selling it modern air defence missile systems. So, to see Turkish forces coming up against Syrian forces in north-eastern Syria is not comfortable for Russia either.

I would like to see Britain take the initiative in this area and show that we are still capable of using London as a major convening centre in trying to sort out international crises. Britain will of course continue to have a strategic relationship with Washington in areas such as defence and intelligence, but on what the gracious Speech refers to as the “most pressing global challenges” we face—whether climate, preserving free trade or the Iranian nuclear deal—actually Britain’s interests have in recent months been much more in line with European interests. I find it uncomfortable that President Macron and Chancellor Merkel are now talking about European strategic autonomy. That is rather a dangerous concept if it means Europe can do without America’s 70-year role in deterring Russian adventurism in this part of the world.

This idea of European strategic autonomy, taken with President Trump’s rather erratic approach to NATO obligations, puts an enormous weight on the next NATO summit, which I am glad to see is being held in London at the end of this year. I really hope that the Government will propose measures of our own to breathe life back into what looks like a rather faltering western alliance at the moment. In responding, perhaps the Minister could assure us that there will be an opportunity for a debate in this House before that summit on what Britain will propose to get NATO back on the road.

We can already see that the EU’s approach to foreign and defence policy will change as Britain leaves. It is clear in the line being taken on European defence and in the signs that EU sanctions on Russia may well be relaxed in the months ahead.

The gracious Speech assured us that Britain will defend our interests and protect our values, which is something I am sure we can all agree to. However, the world will be full of difficult trade-offs for a Britain operating on its own account and constantly having to balance the need for trade agreements and investment with standing up for its interests and values. We see that at the moment with Hong Kong and balancing standing up for the rights we promised to the Hong Kong people against our commercial interests in China. That will become the norm if Britain leaves the EU and operates on its own account.

Of course, we will still have many assets as a player in the world: our Armed Forces, our diplomacy, our development, our soft power, the BBC, our culture, our sport. However, these will translate into influence only if there is real political leadership in implementing a clear strategy. We need the means to achieve that strategy, namely a well-funded Foreign Office. I wonder whether the Minister will be able to tell us when we will have an ambassador in Washington or when we will have a full-time national security adviser, who can spend their entire time advising the Government on plotting a national strategy in the choppy waters that lie in front of us.

It is not for me to sum up, but since I am the last speaker today, I will say that it has been a privilege to sit and listen to this thoughtful and high-quality debate, ranging across the very wide canvas that the Motion invited us to address. I am very struck that, right across that landscape of defence, trade, development and foreign policy, whether and in what terms we leave the EU has a huge impact. It is therefore all the more extraordinary that this country, with our great and glorious history, is in a position in which we cannot tell foreign friends what the country’s relationship with the EU will be in three months or three years. Whatever the final outcome, my conclusion is that Britain’s reputation in the world has suffered real damage from the chaotic way in which the whole Brexit issue has been handled.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for trying to adjourn this debate prematurely. I am sure we would have all missed his thoughtful contribution. I beg to move that the debate be adjourned.